


T.O.T.

by TykTrope



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood and Gore, Child Death, Comedy, Death, Gen, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Horror, Human, Police, Teenagers, Werewolves, pre-teen, self-aware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 10:23:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 50,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14913614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TykTrope/pseuds/TykTrope
Summary: A group of preteens trick-or-treating on Halloween fight for their lives as a malicious werewolf hunts them down and begins to murder the neighbors within their community.





	1. Let’s Have Fun

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, second story getting reposted from Fictionpress! This was a story I wrote in a couple of weeks on a spur of the moment last year around the Halloween season. Not much to it, it's pretty straightforward in its premise and the plot and everything, albeit the characters are self-aware of the situation they're in. :p 
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the story. :)

He frowned. Why wouldn’t he? He had his special costume on that he spent weeks creating. He looked down at his long-sleeved white shirt and his baggy black pantaloons that were held up with a red waistsash. Then he reached up and straightened out his black hat with a skull and crossbones on it. Nothing he was wearing was offensive; how could it be? He was only dressed as a harmless pirate. He had been polite when he greeted the neighbor. He had a wide smile on his face. And even after he received his gift, he went ahead and said “thank you” regardless. The child exhaled as he looked inside his brown bag and took out the giant ambrosia apple. 

“Coulda given me a green one at least,” he murmured.

The child set the apple back down inside his bag and promptly sorted out all the contents in his sack. Most of it was chocolate, but he also acquired some licorice and rock candy from a few parents who were overenthusiastic about the sweets they gave away. He closed the bag and exhaled as he started walking down the sidewalk again, only to run into another young kid walking with his older sister. The other kid was wearing a long-sleeve red shirt, along with blue overalls and a red cap with the letter “M” printed on it, and his sister was wearing a sparkly, frilly light-blue blouse and matching pants, and she had painted a green star on her left cheek.

“Heeeeeeey, Markie-boy! Just hit the mother load back there! Whatchu got? A rock?”

Mark scowled at the grinning boy. “I got rock _candy_. Does that count?”

“Eh, same difference. Sure you don’t wanna join us? We’ve been hitting a lotta good houses lately!”

Mark shook his head. “I’m good, Dylan. It’s more fun this way anyway.”

Dylan’s sister blinked. “It’s fun walking around this late at night by yourself?”

“Yeah! Where’s the fun in trick-or-treating if there’s no spookiness? ‘Sides,” he said, grabbing the hilt of a sword he was carrying. “Not like I’m not prepared!”

“That’s good,” said Dylan. “When some giant monster attacks you, you can poke out its eye with that hunk of plastic.”

“Oh, hahah. Funny. I’ll meet you at Boog’s house and we’ll spend the night.”

“Later!”

“Later.”

The two friends split up, and Mark resumed walking down the street carrying his giant bag full of candy, adjusting his pirate hat so it wouldn’t fall off his head. He made sure to stay around all the streetlights and occasionally came across other young kids or teenagers walking around collecting candy from their neighbors. Mark heard some bushes rustling nearby and stopped walking. He raised an eyebrow and looked at the bushes, only to realize that the leaves weren’t moving anymore. Mark took another step forward, and then he heard the leaves rustling again.

“Uh-uh,” he said, turning around.

As Mark stepped away from the rustling bushes, he walked out into the middle of the street, where he sighed with relief upon finding a police vehicle slowly cruising down the block. Mark got out of the car’s way and squinted when the driver shined a flashlight at him. The driver turned off his flashlight and stuck his head out the window.

“Where’s your parents?” the officer asked.

“Oh, they-they said it was okay if I went trick-or-treating by myself.”

“Mm-hmm. So if I went to your house…”

Mark blinked as he looked over at the ground. He sighed. “You’d find two assholes passed out on the floor, with some beer staining the carpet.”

Mark stared at the driver, and the officer’s mood suddenly shifted. “Still, it’s not safe being out here this late at night with no supervisors. I’m gonna swing around the cul-de-sac the next ten minutes. When I get back, there better be someone with you. Someone _older_ , and someone a bit more trustworthy. You get me?”

Mark smirked. “Yeah, I gotcha. I’m sure there’s a few hobos around here.”

The young child laughed to himself, but the officer just snorted and put his hands back on the steering wheel.

“Ten minutes.”

Mark nodded, and then the officer resumed driving down the street. After the confrontation, Mark stepped over onto the sidewalk and rolled his eyes. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started to punch in Dylan’s number.

“BLAAAAAAARRRGH!”

Mark screamed and stumbled backwards as someone creeped up behind him and shouted at him. As he sat on the ground on the verge of wetting himself, he looked at the tall man in front of him and calmed down. He was dressed as a werewolf, albeit his costume looked more authentic than most. His dark blue shorts were ripped and torn, and his black fur looked dirty and crusty. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so Mark could see his distended belly and the ridges around his muscles. His eyes were yellow, his muzzle was long, his ears were pointy, and his mouth was full of slobber and sharp teeth. It was all fake though. The costume was no more real than the sword Mark was carrying. When the man stopped screaming and shut his mouth, he lowered his arms and wiggled his nose.

“Ya havin’ fun yet?”

Mark exhaled as he started grabbing the candy that fell from his bag. “Yeah, yeah, good job. You scared me. You want a medal?”

“I’ll take that cookie actually,” he said, pointing a clawed finger at the dessert on the ground.

After a brief pause, Mark grabbed the cookie and tossed it in the man’s giant left paw. He opened his mouth and tossed the cookie inside, munching on it noisily and drooling as he swallowed. After he finished, he helped the child pick up his candy and set it inside the bag.

“Seriously though, sorry. Got a li’l caught up in the fun. You know how it is!”

“Yeah, I—” Mark stiffened. He sniffed the man a few times before he backed away. “Dude, when was the last time you washed your costume?”

The man sniffed his underarms before he shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t really wash it. Just let it simmer in all the sweat and bodily fluids! Can’t just look like a werewolf; gotta smell like one too!”

“…Right.”

Something seemed off about the man, but Mark couldn’t exactly figure it out. He started to walk around him, staring at his costume and trying to figure out where the zipper was. The man even had a fuzzy black tail that would occasionally move on its own. He stood in front of the man again and rubbed his forehead as he talked to him.

“You must’ve spent a long time working on this costume. Seems…seems _very_ legit.”

“Damn, you’ve no idea, kid! Took almost a whole year! Spent a couple thousand dollars making this thing!”

“And this _is_ a costume…right?”

The man waved his paw and scoffed. “Pfft! Yeah kid, I’m a spooky scary werewolf, and I’ve come to eat you and all your friends! C’mon now; it’s the twenty-first century.”

Mark huffed. “Good point. Um, how old are you?”

“How old are _you_?”

“Eleven. Are you at least twenty-one? The cop patrolling this neighborhood saw me walking alone; apparently I need ‘adult supervision’ or some shit.”

“Well, technically I’m sixteen, but hey! I can just tell ‘em I look young for my age! They’ll believe it.”

Mark looked at the man in his seemingly authentic costume and smiled. “I’m Mark.”

“I’m Maximus! Maximus Slade.”

“Heh, okay, Maximus. Let’s go trick-or-treating!”

“Hells yeah!”

____________________________

The next half-hour was spent walking up to each house, ringing each doorbell, and promptly waiting for the parents of each house to give out a nice supply of junk food for both of them to munch on. The police officer from earlier returned as he promised, but when he spotted Mark walking alongside a taller and seemingly older trick-or-treater, he nodded and resumed driving down the block. Mark continued to examine the neighborhood, looking around to see which house they hadn’t come across yet. The neighborhood was massive and consisted of over three hundred residences. Mark knew that he and Maximus would be out all night. And the best part was, tomorrow was Saturday, so Mark didn’t even have to worry about school. Maximus still hadn’t explained anything about his family yet, but Mark assumed that his parents were fine with him staying out late as well. As they wandered around the streets, some of the kids stopped to admire Maximus’ costume, and a few of them even took a few pictures with him. It wasn’t until they reached their fourteenth stop where the duo sat on the sidewalk so they could examine their treats.

“I can’t believe this man! Except for that stupid apple, they’ve been giving out the good stuff tonight! Look at this—it’s a Mars bar! They don’t even carry these in America!”

Mark set down his bag and chuckled as he looked at Maximus, who was examining his bag with a scowl on his face.

“What’d you get?”

The teenager huffed. “Let’s see: pack of breath mints, pack of breath mints, pack of mint-flavored gum, ‘notha pack of breath mints—oh, lookie here! Fuckin’ breath mints! Why the hell did you get all the good shit and all I got was fuckin’ gum and breath mints?!”

Mark scooted away from Maximus and plugged his nose. “Because your breath is scarier than your costume.”

Maximus groaned and tossed his bag on the ground. “Fuck this. Let’s go do something else!”

Mark chuckled as he stood up. “Hey, don’t be mad ‘cause you aren’t fond of oral hygiene! Look, I gotta meet up with some friends anyway. You can come along if you want. We could all hang out together!”

Maximus shook his head and licked his lips. “Nah…not fun enough. But that…yes, _that_ right there…”

Maximus pointed to an immense two-story house that only had one car in the driveway. Mark looked at the house and noticed that the lights were still on and a jack-o-lantern was sitting in the driveway. He frowned.

“Oh. _That_ house. Let’s just go; those are the Albys. Couple of old crones who wanna be left alone.”

“Betcha their house is _loaded_ with candy!”

“Nope…just a bunch of dusty books. Bibles, autobiographies, adult magazines, lots of boring shit. You wouldn’t like it.”

Maximus ignored him and approached the house, licking his lips again. “If they’re so old and wrinkly, then this should be no problem!”

“Dude, I’m serious! They got heart problems and all that shit; your costume would literally scare them to death!”

Still, the teenager ignored Mark. He walked over to the Albys’ house and pounded his fist on their front door. Mark quickly sprinted over to him and tugged on his fur, begging him to leave. But before they could, they heard the door unlocking, and it opened up soon afterwards.

“Yeah, what do you want?” snarled Mrs. Alby.

Mark rolled his eyes and huffed. “Trick or treat,” he said half-heartedly.

“TELL ‘EM WE DON’T HAVE NO CANDY!” Mr. Alby shouted from across the house.

“I KNOW!” Mrs. Alby huffed. “You know we don’t celebrate this silly holiday. Please leave.”

Maximus glared at Mrs. Alby before he wiggled his toes. Suddenly, he bellowed, “SMELL MAH FEET!”

“Wh—”

Before anyone had time to react, Maximus kicked Mrs. Alby in the throat, knocking her backwards onto her living room floor. The teenager stepped inside the house and promptly stepped all over the elderly woman. Then he pressed his right foot down on her face, smothering her with the giant artificial footpaw.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Mark shouted.

Maximus snickered as he watched Mrs. Alby squirm beneath his foot. “It’s part of the joke, ain’t it? The old bitch has gotta sniff my feet until she gives me something good to eat!”

“Not _literally_ you dumb shit! Get off; you’re gonna suffocate her!”

“Relaaaaaax! My foot odor is the _least_ of her problems!”

Mark stepped inside the house and grabbed Maximus’ leg, grunting as he tried to pry it off.

“Get…the fuck—OFF!”

Maximus grinned widely when he noticed that Mrs. Alby wasn’t struggling so much anymore. Her arms weren’t flailing around, and her gasps were getting quieter.

“STOP IT!”

Annoyed over the child, Maximus shoved Mark into the wall so hard that one of the pictures fell down, causing the frame to shatter.

“What the fuck is going on out here?!”

Maximus looked up and saw a chubby, bald man walking from the kitchen into the living room. The second he saw what was happening to his wife, he swore, turned around, and ran to grab a knife. Maximus snarled, slammed the front door shut, and sprinted into the kitchen. Mark was still dazed from banging his head against the wall, but he heard Mr. Alby scream, followed by what sounded like flesh tearing. Shaking his head, Mark panted a few times before he heard bones breaking and more flesh tearing. The child was about to walk into the kitchen until he heard what seemed to be chewing, and then he grimaced.

“The fuck…Maximus?”

A heavy sigh came from the kitchen. A few seconds later, Maximus walked back out into the living room with blood in his fur and flesh in his mouth. He slurped noisily and swallowed what seemed to be a large chunk of skin before he exhaled.

“See? Told you they were holding out on us!”

Mark’s eyes widened. He looked at Mrs. Alby, who was barely alive and struggling to breathe. Maximus rolled his eyes and huffed.

“Old bitch still ain’t dead. Hang on, hang on.”

The teenager walked up to Mrs. Alby and crouched down. With a wide grin on his face, he ran three claws against her neck, lacerating it so deeply that Mark could see the bare flesh from the wound. He whimpered as he watched the elderly woman bleed out, followed by Maximus bending over and licking some of the blood off the floor like some feral dog lapping up water from a pond. Maximus growled deeply before he turned and looked at Mark.

“Want some?”

Mark glared at the beast’s demented smile. And then the strangest thing happened. He started laughing. The young child shook his head and shut his eyes, laughing to himself as he processed everything in his mind. A werewolf? A real werewolf? Two dead people? All this blood and exposed flesh? No way, he thought. This ain’t happening. Mark spread his arms wide and began to clap slowly.

“Very, very nice! Very good! Very good, Dylan! Ya got my reeeeeeeaaaal fuckin’ good! Real good man!”

Maximus raised an eyebrow. “Who the fuck is Dylan?”

“No, no, don’t _even_ try to play dumb. I know exactly what this is! C’mon, c’mon—where’s the cameras? Where are the buckets of fake blood?”

Maximus scratched his head in confusion. “Huh?”

“This is some prank! It’s a very, _very_ convincing Halloween prank! I mean what else could it be? Werewolves? Dead people? Blood? Tch!” Mark waved a hand. “Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaase!”

Maximus’ attitude shifted from bewilderment to sadistic glee. He stood up and walked over to Mark, towering over the child by at least a foot. He crouched down and licked his lips again, flashing his teeth at the young boy.

“Go on, then. See just how ‘fake’ I am, Mark.”

When Maximus opened his mouth, Mark blenched from the stench of his breath again. Holding his nose with one hand, Mark reached forward and stuck his other hand inside the creature’s maw. He felt the canine’s hot breath and the moisture inside the mouth. A small drop of saliva even hit the top of Mark’s hand. Then he reached down and placed a few fingers on Maximus’ tongue, grimacing when he noticed how slimy it was.

“This…this is fake,” he said in disbelief.

He reached over and ran his fingers against Maximus’ teeth. Then he flinched when he pressed one of his fingers down so hard that it punctured the skin, causing blood to come out. Mark looked at his bleeding finger and frowned. He whimpered and backed away from the werewolf.

“This is fake,” he said again.

“You keep telling yourself that if it’ll make you feel better. Heh, perhaps if you wish hard enough, these bodies will magically disappear too!”

Mark took two steps away from Maximus. The werewolf took two steps closer. The child closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he swallowed the bile that was forming in his throat and cleared his mind. He looked all around the living room for some kind of weapon to use; a wooden bat was lying in the corner, but there was no other visible weapon he could find. Mark wiped his forehead and adjusted his hat again.

“Say this…say this is real. Say you just killed these two people. Say you are a real werewolf. Your first instinct would be to kill me.”

“Yes, it would.”

“So why haven’t you?”

Maximus growled. “You know how it goes. You get bit by a werewolf, you turn into one! Let me bite you, dear Mark! We’ll have loads of fun together! You’ll enjoy it! You don’t age; you don’t get hurt; you get super speed and strength! Heh, no showers, no brushing your teeth, no homework, no school, no getting old—it’s wonderful! You can even regenerate your health if you get hurt, just like all those shitty modern-day shooters. Whaddya say, Mark?”

Mark exhaled. “If I say no, you’ll kill me.”

“Absolutely,” Maximus growled, before licking his teeth. “I haven’t feasted on a child’s flesh for some time. I’m actually hoping you’ll say no!”

Mark exhaled again and swallowed. He slid a hand into his pants and took out his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“You-you want another partner in crime, right? Well…well, h-how ‘bout a whole gang? Eh? How-how ‘bout a gang of werewolves, with-with you as the leader? You’d like that…right? I-I’m supposed to meet my friends, remember?”

“Ohhhhhh, right! Forgot about that! Sure, why not? The more, the merrier I say!”

“Good! S-so…I’ll just call them and let them know I’m bringing company!”

“Call ‘em from right here.”

“I-I gotta use the bathroom.”

Maximus grinned. “Are you lying to me?”

“No, dude. I gotta take a piss.”

Maximus pointed to a corner in the living room. “Piss right here. I, uh, I doubt the Albys will mind at this point.”

Mark chuckled. “Nah. The cops come here and they see my urine, shit’s gonna be used for DNA.”

“…Such a smart child you are. Hmm…fine. Go pee.”

Mark wasn’t lying to the beast. He really did have to micturate—so badly that he nearly wet himself when he was talking to Maximus. After Mark finished urinating, he quickly dialed 911 and put the phone up to his ear. Trembling and whimpering, Mark turned on the bathroom’s sink and listened to the phone ring.

“Sheriff’s department, what’s your emergency?”

Mark shuddered and whimpered. “I-I need help…I-I just found two bodies and…and I think the killer’s still here.”

There was no point in even trying to explain that the killer was a werewolf. They had to come down and see for themselves.

“You say you’re reporting a double homicide, sir?”

“Y-yes…yes, I’m at—at 1879 Chasworth Way, in-in the Green Water subdivision.”

There was a pause. “Did you say ‘Green Water,’ sir?”

“Yes, Green Water. Please…please help me.”

The woman on the other end sighed. “Sir, are you aware that we’ve received ten phone calls from that location about a serial killer on the loose? All of which have been faulty?”

“This-this isn’t a prank. It’s not a prank!”

“Sir, I also notice that you sound like a child. Most of these phone calls have been reported from children. Did you steal your mother’s cell phone—” 

“There’s two dead people here; the killer’s still in the house! _I’m_ still in the house! Get the fuck down here and help me!”

“Sir, I must ask you to lower your voice—”

“FUCKING GET DOWN HERE AND HELP ME!”

The line went dead.

“I—hello? Hello? No…no, no, don’t do this to me. Don’t—”

Mark screamed when Maximus kicked the door open, nearly knocking him backwards. He shivered as the black-furred beast glared at him and growled.

“Your eyes are watering. Were you crying?”

“I…my friends, they-they got mad at me,” he lied. “We got into an argument.”

“Uh-huh. Gimme your phone.”

Mark blinked. “Why?”

“Gimme your phone.”

“You-you can’t use it anyway. Your fingers and your paws are too big.”

Maximus smiled. “Do I need to take it from you?”

He couldn’t get around it. His back in the corner, Mark slowly handed the phone over to Maximus. Using his claws delicately, the canine looked at Mark’s phone and checked his recent phone calls. He smiled again.

“911, eh? Why would you call them? Surely you know that…”

Maximus thought for a moment and rubbed his chin. Then he nodded. “No, wait. That’s wonderful. Hehe, that’s great! The cops will come here, and they’ll all try to kill me! But cops don’t carry silver bullets or machetes…they won’t kill me. They _can’t_ kill me! But I know they’ll try…yes…yes, this’ll be quite the challenge! This’ll be loads of fun!”

Maximus reached down and chuckled as he patted Mark’s hat. “Nice work. Not only have you made my night loads more interesting, but now I’ll have lots of li’l piggies to feast on!”

Maximus chuckled again as he backed out of the bathroom. “Now…you won’t need this anymore…”

Mark walked out of the bathroom as well, swearing inwardly when Maximus crushed Mark’s phone with his bare paw. He stood in the corridor beside the baseball bat.

“You should clean your footpaws!”

Maximus raised an eyebrow. “What the hell for?”

“You got blood on ‘em! You’ll-you’ll leave footprints and then when the cops come, they’ll find out where you’re hiding a lot quicker!”

“I don’t have—”

“Yes, you do.”

“I do not.”

“You do too.”

“Do not.”

“Do too!”

“Do not!”

“Do too!”

Maximus blinked a few times. He flicked his eyes at the floor and saw the pool of blood that had come from Mrs. Alby’s body. Curious, he lifted his left footpaw and frowned.

“Shit, I do have—OW!”

Using swift speed, Mark grabbed the baseball bat and bashed Maximus in the head once, twice, thrice. The werewolf shouted each time he was hit, and then grunted as he stumbled backwards and fell on the floor. As he lied on his back, Mark swung the bat against him over and over again, listening to the wood thwack and thump against his bones and flesh. He smacked him in the skull so hard that the bat cracked and snapped in half. And then Mark promptly snarled as he jabbed the broken bat against Maximus’ left eyeball. The werewolf howled in pain and writhed around on the floor, grasping his eye as he tried to remove the hunk of wood. Meanwhile, Mark whimpered as he sprinted for the door and unlocked it. He sprinted outside, panting and blinking as he looked around the street.

“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!” he screeched.

He ran across the street and banged his fist on the door, knocking and ringing the doorbell incessantly.

“OPEN UP! OPEN THE DOOR!” he pleaded.

No one answered. Still panting, Mark looked through the windows and noticed all the lights were off, even though the owners’ cars were in the driveway. So the child left and ran down the sidewalk, still screaming for help and hoping the subdivision’s night watch would return. As Mark gained distance from the house, Maximus weakly stumbled to the front door and shouted as he removed the wood from his eye.

“Fucker…”

He groaned again as blood ran down his face. Then he shook his head and chuckled.

“That’s okay…that’s all right. I like a challenge. Tonight is gonna be a fun night!”

Maximus laughed as his eyeball slowly squished and crackled, the damaged flesh slowly healing itself into its original form.

“Oh yes. Gonna have _lots_ of fun tonight!”


	2. Let’s Play a Game

Mark panted as he kept running from door to door. Everyone refused to open up, or none of the adults appeared to be home. The young boy wiped more sweat off his forehead before he turned around, checking to see if the werewolf was anywhere close by. He couldn’t fathom any of this. A giant werewolf, no adults to help him, no police coming to his rescue, and all he had was a fake sword that couldn’t give anyone a paper cut if they tried. Leaves rustled in the distance, and Mark shouted as he broke out into a sprint again. He ran past a mailbox that had fake cobwebs and spiders all over it before he spotted another house nearby with the lights still on.

“Oh thank god…yes!” he shouted, almost sobbing with joy.

Mark actually laughed as he dragged his feet across the ground and through the grass. He ran up to the front door, ignoring the fact that someone already left the door open. He pushed it open and stepped into the brightly-lit living room.

“Hello?! I need help! There’s—”

Mark shrieked when he stepped into the kitchen. He couldn’t tell how many body parts were on the floor. All he saw was blood and flesh that had cooled overtime. The boy backed away from the corpses and sobbed as he ran back outside. He should’ve noticed it earlier before he met Maximus—people had been screaming, but their voices were faint. But it was Halloween after all; everyone loved playing pranks on each other and scaring other people. It easily could’ve been some hooligans or college frat boys partying too hard. But it made sense now. Mark rushed outside the house and headed to the building next door owned by a retired veteran. Once again, the lights were on and the man’s car was still in the driveway. But when Mark peeked through one of the windows, he saw part of someone’s hand on the floor and a pool of blood not far from it. Mark huffed and shook his head.

“Not happening, not happening, not happening, not happening,” he kept saying over and over.

Seeing no other option, Mark raced back to the neighbor’s house with the front door still open and walked back inside. He started ransacking the place, stealing any items he knew would be of value to him: a knife, a hammer, and a flashlight. Afterwards, he looked at the corpses on the floor and huffed. He thought about saying something to them, but there was nothing he could do, and no words would alleviate the situation or make anything any better. Mark took a huge breath as he walked out into the middle of the street and stood by a streetlight. He counted the batteries in his pocket before double-checking to make sure that the flashlight worked.

“C’mon, please be silver, please be silver, please—DAMN IT!”

Both the knife and the hammer were primarily composed of stainless steel. Mark moved away from the streetlight and removed his sword, sliding the knife into the fake sword’s scabbard instead. He carried the hammer in one hand and the flashlight in the other, panting and shaking as he moved down the quiet, eerie road.

“Markie-boy…”

Mark shouted and turned around, shining the flashlight behind him. Hands shaking, Mark slowly took a few steps backwards as he raised his hammer. Blinking, Mark turned back around and saw another flashlight in the distance.

“Yes! YES! HEY! HEY, COME HERE! I NEED HELP!”

Sprinting, Mark made his way over to the two people walking down the street: some girl dressed as a mummy while her father was dressed as Spider-Man. When Mark was close enough, the girl’s father turned off his flashlight and blinked.

“Hello?”

Mark huffed a few times as he stopped in front of the two trick-or-treaters. “Get-get your phone out! I-I need you to call the cops!”

The girl’s father glared at Mark. “Is this another prank? Are you with Toby and his gang?”

“Wh-what prank?! I just found a bunch of dead bodies! THIS ISN’T A GODDAMN PRANK!”

The little girl whimpered. “Daddy?”

The girl’s father huffed. “Go home, kid. I don’t understand what enjoyment you clowns get from scaring little children and riling up people like me!”

Mark stammered. “Do-do you want me to show you the bodies? I’ll fuckin’ show you the bodies if you need _that_ much proof! Just-just call the cops; that’s all I’m asking!”

The older man scoffed and yanked on his daughter’s hand. “C’mon, Jem. We’re done now; let’s go back home.”

Before Mark could say anything else, someone bashed him against the side of his head. Mark grunted as he fell to the ground, groaning and grasping his temple. He gritted his teeth and heard the girl scream, moments before the child’s father emitted a gurgling noise. When Mark’s vision returned and he stood back up, Maximus was standing a few feet away. He was grinning at him and holding the girl hostage, while her father lied on the ground with his throat and stomach torn open by claws.

“Ya havin’ fun yet, Mark?” Maximus asked.

The werewolf wagged his tail as he rubbed the girl’s head. “How ‘bout you? Havin’ fun yet?”

Mark let out a shuddering breath and lifted his hammer. “You let her go.”

Maximus scoffed. “You stabbed me in the eye with a chunk of wood, and now I’m all better! Whatcha gonna do with that puny hammer, huh?”

“I’ll shove it up your ass!”

Maximus frowned. “Actually, that _would_ hurt a lot.”

“HELP—”

Maximus covered the girl’s mouth. “Mm-mm. Stay quiet, girl. But anyways…how you doin’, Markie-boy?”

“Please just let the girl go. You said you-you want me! Why the fuck did you kill all those adults? Why did you kill this girl’s father? We’re fucking trick-or-treating; we didn’t do anything to deserve this!”

A guttural growl rose from Maximus’ throat. “Why, why, why? You humans _always_ need some kind of reason, don’t you? Why did terrorists bomb New York? Why do pedophiles rape children? Why do people change lanes without signaling? So many questions—it’s all so, so boring.”

“You’re not answering!”

Maximus grunted as he tightened his grip on the girl. “Let’s try this again: let me bite you, Mark. We’ll both be werewolves. We’ll be like brothers! Don’t you want that, Mark? Don’t you want a big, scruffy brother like me to guide you, to show you how much fun it is being a werewolf?”

“All I want is some candy! That’s all _any_ of us want! I don’t care about being a stupid-ass werewolf!”

“That’s unfortunate. Guess this girl—”

“You’re not gonna kill her.”

Maximus smirked. “I’m not?”

“No, you’re not! Dude, I’ve come across six bodies! Six! None of them were children. This happens all the time. All the adults get ass-raped, but none of the kids die! Ever! We have some special invisible shield or some shit! That’s why you didn’t kill me earlier; that’s why you killed this girl’s father instead of the girl herself! You don’t wanna kill us…you wanna ‘play’ with us! You want us to be werewolves like you—to be your allies, your servants! You may act all big and bad, but even you aren’t callous enough—”

Maximus snapped the girl’s neck. He let her body drop to the ground and then stared at Mark’s devastated face. The boy felt his hammer and flashlight gradually sliding out of his slippery hands. He had to force himself to grip the two items tightly so he wouldn’t drop them. Then he whimpered softly and backed away from the body, just as Maximus stepped over the dead girl and chuckled.

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right! I have no intention of killing children! Nope! None whatsoever!”

His head felt like it was going to explode. There was no reason for any of this. Mark whimpered again as he stared at the girl’s body and backed away. His vision slowly blurred as he kept staring at the bodies in front of him.

“…You didn’t have to…that wasn’t—”

“Necessary? Nah, it wasn’t. It’s also not necessary to pee on the floor, but dogs do it all the time!”

Mark backed away from the werewolf again. He turned around and looked behind him, checking to see whether or not he’d be able to run away from Maximus before he reached him. But Maximus knew what the child was thinking, because he slowly started to circle around him like a shark.

“Just tell me why…don’t say there’s no reason. There-there’s _always_ a reason…this isn’t just random…”

Maximus exhaled and rubbed his forehead. “Why do you play video games? Why does the entertainment industry create violent military shooters? Why is there a game series all about criminals stealing cars and killing innocent people?”

“…This is about money?”

“No! It’s about fun, silly! Mass murder, destruction, anarchy, killing indiscriminately—isn’t that what you humans enjoy? Isn’t that what you humans thrive off of? Isn’t that what millions of dollars is spent on?”

“That’s…you can’t compare—”

“Oh, but I _can_! In fact, I’ve created my own game, and we’re both the players! Y’see, here’s how it goes: I’m gonna stalk you and the rest of the innocents in this neighborhood. You all got until morning to either stop me or to survive without me killing you. But I can already tell you’re gonna lose—no worries, no worries. I’ll give you a head start! That’s more than fair, right? I’m gonna let you go! You can either turn around, run away, go find some weapons or friends or whatever to try and kill me; I don’t care. It won’t work. Or you can use that puny hammer and that inferior knife to try and kill me, which won’t work. And at that point, I’ll rip your throat out. Or perhaps you don’t wanna play at all! If that’s the case, just-just fall down. I’ll put you out of your misery real quick.”

“…Those are my options.”

Maximus nodded and smiled. “Those are your options! Please, by all means, pick the first option. It’s so dull when my opponents give up and don’t even _try_ to fight me.”

It kept replaying over and over again in his head. He kept telling himself this was all fake, that he was stuck in a nightmare. Maybe he’d wake up if he banged his head hard enough. Maybe he’d discover that he was stuck inside some mental asylum and had been abusing hallucinogens. Mark shut his eyes and shook his head, his mind swelling with dozens of emotions.

“Fine…I’ll play your game,” Mark sighed.

Maximus giggled. “Oh, goody! Trust me, Markie-boy; you won’t regret it! Now go on, shoo. Go think up some master plan to stop me. I assure you, it’ll fail.”

He knew it now. Anger. The moment he looked at that smug, overconfident grin on Maximus’ face, all he felt was anger. He wanted to bash his brains out with the hammer, but the canine was expecting it. He wanted to carve out his eyeballs, but he was expecting that too. He had no other options _but_ to retreat and come up with a better plan. So Mark backed away from Maximus, not taking his eyes off of him in case the canine tried to attack him from behind. But much to Mark’s surprise, Maximus turned and disappeared, hopping over someone’s wooden fence. Mark slid his weapons back into his pockets and resumed sprinting down the street, wondering if any of the other adults in the neighborhood were still alive. He knocked on a few more doors, expecting someone to answer, but the reply was the same. The houses were eerily silent, and Mark saw evidence that Maximus had broken in. At worst, he’d find part of a corpse as he looked through the windows. There was only one option left at this point. 

____________________________

“Where the hell is Mark? I thought he said he’d meet us here,” Boog asked.

“Maybe he got murdered by Freddy Kruger,” said Dylan.

Dylan’s sister glared at him. “That’s not even funny. You know damn well children get kidnapped in real life.”

“Yeah, yeah, you know I ain’t serious. Oh, there he is. Hey, Markie-boy!”

Mark was on the verge of falling over. It wasn’t until he spotted the young child stuffed inside a fluffy Teddy bear costume that his spirits were finally lifted. He mustered more strength from within and forced himself to jog towards the trio as they stood in front of Boog’s house.

“Guys…guys, we…we have a problem,” Mark wheezed.

“What? Did you stab yourself with your shitty-ass sword?” Dylan joked.

“No…no. There’s a…there’s a serial killer…he’s killing all the adults in the neighborhood! Mr. and Mrs. Alby are dead!”

Dylan blinked. “I don’t think that’s a bad thing, Mark.”

Dylan shouted when his sister smacked him against his head. She looked at the boy and asked, “Mark, is this a prank?”

“I swear—NO! THIS IS NOT A GODDAMN PRANK!”

“Okay, okay then. Did you see the killer? What does he look like?”

Mark exhaled and shut his eyes. He looked down at the ground and murmured.

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

“Werewolf,” he grumbled.

“Mark, I still can’t hear you.”

“Shit…his name’s Maximus Slade. He’s a werewolf, okay?”

The reaction was expected. Dylan’s sister rolled her eyes and scoffed at him, while Dylan himself broke out into a fit of uncontrollable giggling. Mark couldn’t hear what Boog was doing except breathing heavily inside his giant bear outfit.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, Mark! And Boog here is Freddy Fazbear!” laughed Dylan.

Mark scoffed. “Why bother. Course you don’t believe me.”

“Well, duh! Werewolves don’t exist, dummy! This is not some crappy-ass B-movie! C’mon, Rachel, you know you agree with me too!”

“Now Mark, if something happened to the Albys, I’ll call the cops and we’ll just hide somewhere until they catch the killer. But I can’t tell them that a werewolf is wandering around murdering people. No one will believe that,” Rachel admitted.

“…I believe it,” said Boog.

Mark, Rachel, and Dylan all looked at Boog with wide eyes.

“WHAT!” they shouted in unison.

Boog shrugged. “What? I do. I mean…it’s Halloween. This is the obvious joke someone could play on us. It’s stupid, it’s overdone, and it’s corny. You _can’t_ make up a story this fucking stupid. You just can’t. …Not unless it was real. And it is, isn’t it, Mark?”

His head lowered, Mark nodded meekly. “Yes…it’s the truth.”

Boog started to breathe heavily beneath the giant Teddy bear head. He started to pace back and forth, his giant paw-shaped shoes emitting soft squishes against the ground with each step he took.

“Oh shit, oh shit, okay—let’s not panic. All we-all we need is some garlic, right?”

“That’s for vampires,” Mark replied. “All garlic is gonna do is give Maximus bad breath. Trust me; he’s already a pro in that department.”

“What about silver?”

“There are no weapons here made outta silver! Everything’s stainless steel—look, I even thought ahead and stole this knife,” responded Mark, showing off the kitchen knife.

“Damn it! Well…guns, then? Like silver bullets?”

“Boog, I don’t think the police—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” interrupted Rachel, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Are we _really_ debating this right now? Like no joke—we’re talking about trying to kill an actual werewolf?”

“Rachel, I know this sounds crazy—”

“Mark, even if this was true—which I’m not saying it is—you all are children! None of us are capable of dealing with something this ludicrous! Werewolves, mummies, zombies, serial killers in hockey masks—I don’t care! We’re calling the sheriff’s department and we’re letting them take care of this!”

“I tried doing that! The cops thought I was trying to prank them and they hung up on me!”

Groaning, Rachel took out her phone and started to dial 911. “Screw it. I’ll try again.”

The boys watched as Rachel walked away from them and started pacing back and forth around one of the streetlights whilst Dylan looked at Mark and chuckled.

“Hehe, so there’s a big bad werewolf out here killing everyone, eh? Awesome!”

“How is this ‘awesome,’ Dylan? People are dying!” Boog said.

“Exactly! And once we kill this giant hairy beast, everyone is gonna look at us as heroes! They’re gonna shower us with lotsa money and-and we’re gonna get free rewards and we’re gonna be able to skip school and college!”

Mark slapped his hand against his forehead. “You fucking idiot.”

Dylan chuckled. “Actually, I’m the smart one buddy! You can either stand there bein’ all mopey-dopey and shit, or you can stand there and tell yourself that we’re gonna get through this night a-okay! And then we’ll be able to tell our friends we had the best damn Halloween _ever_!”

Boog looked at Dylan and breathed heavily. “That’s a good point…”

After chuckling, Dylan smirked and nudged Mark in his shoulder. “So cheer up, bud! Tonight’s gonna be fun!”

Mark looked up at Dylan’s smirk and backed away. “Please don’t say that word…”

____________________________

After circling around the cul-de-sac once again, the bald police officer exhaled as he parked in front of a stop sign. He turned off the car’s engine but kept the radio on in case he received any active calls. As he reached over to pick up his now cold cup of coffee, the radio crackled a few times and he exhaled.

“Four-Tango-Twenty-Seven, what’s goin’ on?”

The policewoman on the other end sounded exasperated. “Yeah, Eddie? I just got four phone calls from the same person, girl named Rachel Sawson.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“Allegedly a double murder. Suspect still at large.”

Eddie paused before scowling. “Where?”

“Same address as before. 1879 Chasworth Way.”

“Are you serious? I passed that house an hour ago; I didn’t see anything suspicious over there. How…wait, before?”

“Oh, some kid called and told the same story. Probably some stupid prank like all the other phone calls.”

“A child called you and gave you the _exact address_ of a possible double homicide and you dismissed it?”

“Eddie, we’ve gotten over ten phone calls from kids tonight! They were all pranks!”

“Jesus fucking Chr—you better pray I don’t find no dead children at that address or your ass is getting fired!”

Eddie put down the radio and huffed in frustration as he turned the car around and headed for the address. Knowing he’d possibly scare off the perpetrator, Eddie kept the sirens and lights off and acted like he was patrolling the neighborhood normally. It took his nearly fifteen minutes before he arrived at the location, and as soon as he did, he knew something was off. The front door was wide open, and there was something lying on the floor. After swearing to himself, Eddie got out of his car with his handgun and flashlight and aimed at the front door. He stepped into the front yard, his heart pounding as he approached the crime scene.

“Police officer!” he warned.

No response. Eddie growled and cautiously walked over to the front door and swore when he saw Mrs. Alby lying on the floor with her throat cut open.

“Police!” he shouted again.

Eddie continued walking through the house, where he noticed splatters of blood within the kitchen. He only had to glance into the kitchen before he realized there was a second, mangled corpse on the floor. He gagged and covered his mouth with his arm before backing away and turning on his radio.

“Four-Tango-Twenty-Seven, got a double homicide in the Green Water subdivision. Suspect still at large; send backup now. Send backup to 1879 Chasworth Way.”

The radio crackled as Eddie stopped talking into it. He listened to the dispatcher on the other end confirm his message—a voice different from the original dispatcher—and sighed with relief when the dispatcher said backup would arrive soon. Eddie searched around the ground floor, opening up doors to the closets and bathroom, only to find that the suspect wasn’t there. Eddie got on his radio again and switched frequencies. 

“Hey, Meyer! Where are you right now?”

A pause, then Eddie heard someone say, “Down near Bullock Avenue. Why?”

“Got a double homicide up here, just called for backup. They should be here in fifteen minutes, but still. Be on your guard; we got some crazy nutjob running around here. If you or Ringar see any trick-or-treaters, you tell them all to go home and lock the doors; I don’t even care if they’re with their parents.”

“Oh damn, seriously? Shit man; watch yourself out there.”

“Same to you.”

Eddie let go of radio again and shook his head. “Fuckin’ holiday.”

Eddie was about to walk outside when he looked at the floor and frowned. There were large splinters from a wooden bat, which was lying on the floor broken in half. Crouching, Eddie blinked a few times where he saw enormous foot prints on the floor. But when he examined them more closely, he realized the prints looked similar to something he’d see from a canine.

“The hell…?”


	3. Let’s Taunt the Cops

Maximus’ stomach growled. He looked down at his distended gut and felt a sharp pain building up deep within his bowels. The werewolf growled as he examined the street, wondering if he would find more trick-or-treaters to feast upon. He casually wandered down the street, knowing full well that anyone who saw him from afar would assume he was just a man in a costume. He headed down an incline and arrived at a four-way intersection not far from a small pond. He was about to continue his journey around the neighborhood when he flared his nostrils and snarled. Pigs, he thought inwardly. Hehe, good! May as well amuse myself for the moment. Maximus crouched down and peeked around the corner of a building, where he spotted two police officers standing outside of their vehicle searching around the street. The werewolf grinned widely as he picked up a large pebble and tossed it at the vehicle. One of the officers flinched when the rock bounced off the windshield, cracking it.

“FUCK! The f…goddamn kids! COME OUT!”

The other officer shined her flashlight at the male officer and blinked. “You see someone?”

Maximus quickly ducked down as the officer slowly walked in his direction. The other one snorted and rubbed her nose.

“Just to remind you,” she announced loudly. “If any of you have a water pistol, we _will_ assume it’s real, and we _will_ shoot you. I’d advise you kids to drop your ‘weapons’ and to go home. Right this minute!”

Maximus whistled, then turned and ran the opposite direction. The two cops heard the bushes rustling and approached them, panting and surrounded by thick trees.

“You see ‘em?”

“No, think he ran. Let’s head back to the car.”

Meyer shook his head. “Uh-uh. Could be the killer. If we let him or her go now, they’re gonna kill more people. You wanna be responsible for a buncha kids getting their heads lopped off?”

“…Shit, yeah. Good point. We sh—backup should be here any minute though! Isn’t it better to just wait? We don’t know what we’re going into.”

“We’ll be fine, Ringar. Just don’t suggest for us to split up.”

Ringar scoffed. “Yes, Meyer. It would be wise for the black man and the tiny woman to split up in the middle of the night with a killer running around. I am not _that_ stupid.”

Meyer smirked at Ringar and nodded. The officers shined their flashlights and guns into the thick field of trees and bushes and stepped forward. As they disappeared, Maximus, who had run around them, reappeared on the street from the south side instead of the north. He groaned as he held his stomach, feeling his lower bowels flaring. The werewolf chuckled like a kid as he got close to the blue and white squad car and nonchalantly climbed on top of it. After doing so, he crouched down, still on the roof, and turned around. He hastily undid his tattered shorts and let them plop down to his ankles. Grunting, Maximus lifted his tail and started to pass gas. And then he sighed heavily with his tongue hanging out his mouth as he defecated.

“Ahhhhhhhh, yeah…that feels good,” he murmured.

Meyer and Ringar returned shortly after realizing that the perpetrator had eluded them. Meyer exhaled as he lowered his flashlight and walked into the street.

“Damn it. Maybe it was just…ARE YOU FUCKIN’ KIDDING ME?!”

Meyer and Ringar stared at their car with wide eyes. Maximus was still on top of it and voiding his bowels. The officers even saw a huge lump of excrement descend from Maximus’ anus and plop down on the windshield, clinging to it like glue. Maximus exhaled and looked over at the officers, waving and smiling.

“Hello!”

The officers pointed their guns at him. “Get on the ground! Get your ass on the ground now!” Meyer exclaimed.

Maximus looked at the ground and blinked, his ears lowered. “But…but the ground’s all dirty. I don’t wanna get my ass dirty!”

Ringar played along. “So pull up your shorts, _then_ get your ass on the ground!”

Sighing, Maximus obeyed the police officer and pulled up his blue shorts. Then he hopped off the vehicle and sat down on the ground, looking at the officers with his giant yellow eyes.

“Put your hands—”

“Paws,” Maximus interrupted.

“WHATEVER! Get ‘em behind your back!” Ringar shouted.

Maximus sighed and did as he was told. “I’m-I’m real sorry, officers! Didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just, I-I _really_ needed to take a shit! This was the only toilet I could find!”

“Yes, you’re hilarious,” Ringar said as she cautiously approached the werewolf from behind and took out her handcuffs.

“What am I being charged with officers?”

“Obscene behavior in public, defiling government property, vandalizing, pissing us off—we’ll think of something,” Meyer snarled. “Just stay put.”

As Ringar wrapped the handcuffs around Maximus’ large wrists, Meyer turned on his radio and called Eddie.

“Yo, Eddie, when’s backup gonna be here? Got a public shitter they need to take care of.”

“They sa…wait, what?”

“Long story. We caught some asshole ‘defiling’ our car. No biggie; we’re just gonna throw him in the backseat ‘til backup gets here.”

“Meyer, what did this asshole look like?”

As Ringar started to open the backdoor of the police cruiser, Maximus turned and smirked at her. She scowled as she looked at his smile and reached for her baton.

“What are you smiling at?”

“Nothing!”

Meyer kept talking to Eddie. He turned and looked at Maximus before replying to Eddie. “He looks like some big-ass black werewolf in shorts. Why?”

“Because I’m at the crime scene now, and I know this sounds crazy…but it looks like some kind of paw prints were left in the blood. Does the suspect have bloody paw prints?”

Meyer exhaled. “Hold on. Sir! Lift your foot up!”

Maximus turned and glared at Meyer. “Which one?”

“It don’t matter! Just do it!”

Ringar shoved Maximus onto his footpaws. The canine grunted softly as he lifted his left footpaw and wiggled his toes. Meyer shined his flashlight on his footpaw and blinked. Before he could say anything, Maximus grunted and jerked his paws apart. The handcuffs broke as though Maximus was snapping kindle in half. Ringar heard the metal snapping and opened her mouth. Before she could attack him, Maximus turned around and swiped his claws at her face, knocking her down. Meyer reacted instantly, shooting him in the back three times and knocking the werewolf to the ground. Panting, Meyer immediately got on his radio again.

“Eddie, get your ass down here now!”

He swore and approached Maximus again, heart still racing after the incident. Ringar groaned and started to get up, the left side of her face bleeding profusely. She sat up and reached for her gun, wobbling and trying to steady herself as she rose.

“You okay?!”

“Yeah…yeah, I’m fine. Gonna need stitches, but I’m fine.”

Meyer approached Maximus and shined his flashlight at his back. “Oh _fuck_.”

“What? You shot him right?”

“There’s no blood…”

Ringar’s eyes widened. “What?”

“There’s no fuckin’—”

It happened before Ringar could comprehend it. One moment, Meyer was talking. The next, she heard a disturbing crunching sound as Maximus sprang to life and grabbed Meyer’s jaw. Using his inhuman strength, the werewolf tightly gripped Meyer’s jaw and jerked it so far down that it broke. Then he twisted the mandible and ripped it right off. Meyer gagged and stumbled around, dropping his gun as his tongue hung out his mouth. He turned around, and Ringar shrieked when she saw the man’s jawless face. Then a set of claws appeared from behind, and Maximus sliced Meyer’s throat open. He gagged and gurgled as he collapsed to the ground, bleeding out. Ringar pointed her gun at Maximus and shot at him a few times. But Maximus ignored the pain and charged at her, pouncing like a jungle cat reaching for its prey. By the time he finished ravaging her body, her face wasn’t recognizable anymore and her ribcage had been torn open. Maximus swallowed the flesh inside his mouth before he licked his lips and exhaled. Then he turned and looked at the house to his left. Someone on the second floor shut off the light.

“I saw you,” Maximus growled.

The werewolf walked over to the house, growling and extending his claws.

____________________________

“What was that?” Boog asked.

Everyone looked outside the window to see if there was anyone nearby. But the neighborhood was silent at the moment, short of all the crickets chirping in the background. Rachel shut the blinds and double-checked to make sure that all the doors and windows in the living room were locked. While that was happening, Mark was sitting on the couch twiddling his thumbs and Dylan was busy playing an old game on a video game console. Mark looked around Boog’s house, checking to see if there were any other means for Maximus to sneak inside. There were no windows in the kitchen, the back door was locked and barricaded, and Boog’s house had no attic. There was no basement either, as far as the boy knew. Mark yelped when he heard a faint thump nearby and shouted as he looked in the corridor leading to the bottom bathroom.

“Boog?!”

Boog appeared from the hallway, no longer wearing the Teddy bear head. He ran his hand though his messy, short, dark brown hair. “Dude, relax. I just took off my head and threw it on the floor.”

Mark relaxed and eased back into the couch. “Oh…I gotcha.”

Boog grunted as he struggled to reach behind so he could take off the rest of his outfit. “Hey, someone help me get this off! I gotta pee.”

“Go in your suit. I’m sure all that fluff will absorb it,” Dylan replied.

“My parents spent a bunch of money on this! I’m not gonna treat it like a diaper! ‘Sides, may as well use the bathroom now so I’m not literally scared shitless later.”

Dylan huffed and paused the game. “Okay, okay, hold on.”

Dylan walked over and unzipped Boog’s outfit while Mark resumed looking around the house for any holes or spots or any vulnerable areas. Rachel could see that the child was unnerved and approached him.

“Mark, just relax. We’ll be fine.”

“Rachel, when people say you’ll be fine, they really mean you’re screwed.”

“I’ve called the cops. All the doors and windows are locked, the blinds are closed, the lights are off. All we need to do is stay here until the police arrive and we’ll be okay. What else _can_ we do?”

Rachel sat down beside Mark as he whimpered gently. She looked down at the boy’s arms and could see that he was still shaking. Shortly after, she reached over and grabbed his hands.

“I promise you, Mark. You’re safe now. Just—stop thinking about it. You’re safe.”

“You weren’t there, Rachel…you didn’t see what he did to those people. And he…he just told me he wanted to have fun. This is just like that-that game right there to him. He just wanted to have fun and…”

Mark felt his eyes watering. Dylan and Boog were looking at him as he trembled, and Rachel silently gestured for them to leave. Dylan shoved Boog over to the bathroom while Rachel continued to comfort the child.

“He said this was fun, Rachel…he didn’t even kill me; he just—he let me go so he could have ‘fun’ with me. I’m just…”

Rachel sniffed. “Makes sense.”

“What do you mean that makes sense?!”

Rachel shrugged. “People, animals, monsters…the lack of sense is what makes sense, Mark. You remember that stabbing incident at my school last year?”

Mark wiped a tear that was running down his face and nodded. “Yeah.”

“You know how it happened?”

Mark shook his head. 

“Well, there was this guy who was dating a girl, right? They loved each other, they made out a lot, blah blah blah. Turns out though that there was another girl he was dating behind the first girl’s back. So apparently, Girl A caught her boyfriend kissing Girl B. She didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything. And then one day, Girl A walks up to Girl B while they were heading home on the buses. With a knife.”

Mark blinked. “So she got jealous. Wh-what does that have to do with this?”

“The guy cheating on his girlfriend knew damn well what he was doing. The girl who did the stabbing went to jail. The girl who got stabbed can’t walk anymore. The guy didn’t get punished at all.” Rachel shrugged. “There was no point to any of this shit. This guy dated two girls behind their backs because he enjoyed it. And one of them got stabbed. As far as I know, the guy moved to a different state, and he’s probably dating another girl.”

Rachel ran a hand through her long red hair. “People do bad shit, Mark. There’s no reason. They just do it.”

“No…there _has_ to be some meaning—”

“Mark,” said Rachel firmly. “There is no reason. This is just what some people do because they _can_. Just…let’s just wait until the cops get here. We’ll figure it out afterwards.”

Mark exhaled as he looked away from Rachel. His brain kept telling him that this wasn’t all random, that there was some deeper connection behind the events taking place. Maybe the child was being punished for how he treated his parents. Maybe someone was upset over how children were pampered across America and wanted to make a statement. Maybe some dentist was sick and tired of cleaning children’s cavities and wanted to show what happened when you ate too much candy. But the more and more Mark thought, the more he realized that his own possible validations for the current events made even _less_ sense than the fact that it was all happening haphazardly. Rachel reached over and placed a hand on the boy’s head before she pulled him in close and lightly hugged him. Mark just looked down and told himself not to think, knowing he’d be better off in the long run.

____________________________

He knew something was wrong when he saw the two bodies sprawled out on the ground. It wasn’t until he walked up to Meyer and Ringar that the police officer scowled and coughed. He backed away from the bodies and started breathing heavily. There were no paw prints this time, although Eddie was disturbed by Meyer’s jawless cadaver and sheer brutality that was unleashed onto Ringar’s body. Panting, Eddie shined his flashlight around the area and checked to see if the suspect was hiding and waiting. He flared his nostrils and scowled when he spotted the pile of feces that Maximus had dumped onto his partners’ police cruiser. Huffing, Eddie grabbed his radio and called it in.

“We got two officers down! Two officers down here in the Green Water subdivision! Where the hell’s my backup, dispatch? I called over a half-hour ago; this killer’s still at large!”

The radio crackled when he let go. He waited impatiently for someone to respond, but all he could hear were the crickets chirping softly and the cool wind blowing through the trees. Eddie looked on the ground again wondering if he’d be able to find any clues, but all he saw was saliva and tiny strands of hair. Curious, Eddie bent down and grabbed a few pieces of hair from the ground. He looked at it closely, unaware that it was actually Maximus’ black fur. He dropped the strands and panted as he started walking towards a house on his left.

“Dispatch?! We got officers down! Respond!”

Still nothing. Eddie swore out of frustration before he ran towards the house with his flashlight and gun in hand. He was about to kick open the door, but then he realized that someone had already broken the lock and forced the door open. Eddie lightly pushed the front door open, and then saw a set of bloody paw prints leading from the house’s stairs all the way outside. Trembling, the officer moved his way up the stairs and kept following the prints until he was on the second floor. Once upstairs, he looked at one of the bedroom doors and saw a bloody message on the door with the words “TOO LATE” scribbled on it. It wasn’t until Eddie saw what appeared to be a winking emote at the end of the message that he scowled and stepped forward. He crept to the door and opened it up. And then immediately gagged and backed away after seeing the bloody gift that Maximus left inside. Shuddering, Eddie stormed out of the house and grabbed his radio again to call in what he saw.

“Dispatch,” he said, before huffing. “I need backup in the Green Water subdivision _now_! We got at least seven dead bodies down here—two of ‘em are police officers, another two are children! Get the fuck down here!”

Even now, after Eddie’s startling discovery, no one was answering. He snarled out of frustrating, put his flashlight in its holster, and took out his cell phone instead. He quickly dialed the sheriff’s personal number and sniffled as he waited for the phone to ring. It went straight to voicemail.

“Are you fu—”

Eddie dialed the number again. He panted and paced around the sidewalk, freezing when he heard something moving in the bushes. But this time around, it was only a squirrel. After finding the small rodent, Eddie realized that his boss’s phone went straight to voicemail again.

“Do you fuckers want—FUCK IT!”

Eddie ended the call and slid his phone back into his pants, just in time to hear someone laughing further up the street. He sprinted up the sidewalk and ran over to the noise, where he spotted two teenagers dressed as characters from _The Walking Dead_ with fake blood splattered on their clothing.

“HEY! Where do you kids live?”

The male teenager blinked. “Sorry?”

“You live here or not? How far away is your house?”

The female ran a hand through her brown hair and coughed. “It’s right up the hill. About a five minute walk.”

“Okay, good. I want you two to walk…” Eddie paused and thought about the situation. Then he changed his mind. “Actually, come with me. I’ll escort you.”

The male scoffed. “We have legs, dude. We’ll just walk.”

“Yeah, my house is _literally_ up the hill. You can see our fence from—”

“Someone is in this neighborhood killing people! So come with me now or you’re gonna die!”

The male chuckled and shook his head. “Oh yeah, how original. ‘Ooh, there’s a serial killer on the loose on Halloween!’ Please, dude. I bet you ain’t even a real cop! You probably just some old-ass trick-or-treater dressed as one!”

“You…okay, fine. Go walk down the street.”

The female teenager rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

Eddie stood by a tree beside the house and waited. He watched the duo walk and whisper amongst themselves. Thirty seconds later, the girl shrieked, and Eddie could hear the male teenager vomiting in the grass. He shook his head and exhaled.

“Sure. _Now_ they believe me.”


	4. Let’s Go Hunting

The black-furred werewolf grinned as he stood in front of the door to the red house. He looked at the driveway and could see that no one was home. Then he looked through the windows of the building and noticed that all of the lights were out. Maximus grinned widely as he stared at the door, eager to discover what was hiding within the house. He looked at the front door and exhaled, and then he lifted his right leg and kicked the door open. It crashed and sent chunks of wood all over the floor, and Maximus laughed as he stepped inside. Not even three seconds later, the lights in the living room turned on. Maximus’ eyes widened. An aging man was sitting in a chair right beside the lamp he just turned on. And he was holding a double-barreled shotgun.

“Oh, _fuck_.”

Maximus yelped as he was blown backwards and tumbled back outside. The werewolf opened his mouth and coughed, seconds before he started gasping and wheezing repeatedly. The shotgun blast hit him so hard and had punctured his flesh so badly that the pellets broke some of his ribs. Already he could feel some of the bones in his body cracking and shifting as it started to self-repair, but Maximus knew it’d be a while before he was fully healed. The werewolf wheezed as he wearily rose to his footpaws, stumbling over himself and collapsing in front of the door again.

“YEAH!” the man yelled. “Get the fuck out! Stop robbing my house you fuckin’ punks!”

Maximus wheezed as he got to his footpaws and exhaled. “Let’s just…I’m not here—”

The owner finished putting two more shells into his shotgun. Maximus dived backwards and listened as the second blast fired just above his head. The man inside the house stood up and removed the shells, replacing them with fresh ones. Maximus whimpered as he scurried into the driveway. The man followed him outside and pointed the shotgun at him, ready to blow his head off.

“You…YOU SHOT ME!” Maximus coughed. “What the fuck, man?! I’m gon’ die now, probably!”

Maximus saw a glimpse of someone in the distance but decided not to follow the person. However, the shotgun blast rang across the quiet neighborhood, and the same pedestrian who was several meters away ran back, curious after she heard the noise. Maximus turned and saw a teenage girl dressed as a pink-haired girl from some kind of anime. Maximus panted and limped towards her.

“Oh thank god! He-he’s crazy!” Maximus coughed again. “He’s got a shotgun; he’s trying to fucking kill me!”

The girl flicked her eyes between the werewolf and the old man. The man snarled and looked at the girl.

“Get out the fuckin’ way! This ain’t none of your business; he broke into my house! I’m defending myself!”

“I was just walking down the street!” Maximus limped closer to her. “This crazy maniac—”

The second Maximus saw the girl take out her phone, he lunged for her. She squealed as Maximus scratched her left arm so deeply that he nearly cut to the bone. Moving swiftly, the canine spun around the girl and wrapped one arm around her throat, holding her hostage. His pain immediately turned into malice as he looked at the old man with a smirk.

“Yeah. Can’t do shit now, can ya?”

The man growled as he stared at the werewolf, still pointing his shotgun at the canine. He took two steps closer to the beast, and Maximus snarled and pressed his claws against the teenager’s throat.

“Put it down. You can’t hit me. S’a wide spread! You’d have to be right up in my face in order—”

The man fired. The teenager shouted as the werewolf collapsed on his back with blood shooting from his face. Meanwhile, the man huffed several times as he removed the shells from the shotgun and ran over to the girl.

“C’mon, you’re all right, you’re good!” 

The teenager was bleeding from her face. Some of the pellets from the blast had spread and grazed her head, shredding through some of her hair and tearing off a chunk of her skin.

“What the hell just happened?!”

The man shook his head as he grabbed the teenager and pulled her away from Maximus. “Just get in my house; I got a first aid kit. Stay in there and go call the cops!”

“Okay, okay,” she said, breathless.

The teenager grasped her head as she ran into the man’s home and pulled out her phone. Meanwhile, the aging man walked over to the bipedal canine and towered over him. He grimaced. The beast’s lower jaw looked like it was about to snap off, and some of his teeth were chipped. There were holes all over his head, but very little blood. 

“The fuck…your head should be hamburger meat; why the fuck…”

The man scoffed and shook his head. “Screw it.” He loaded his shotgun with two more shells. It wasn’t until he snapped the barrels back into place that Maximus woke up. He snarled as he reached up and grabbed the man’s pants. Startled, the man jerked his arm and fired, hitting the sidewalk instead. Maximus used the opportunity to dig his claws into the man’s shirt and flesh, and promptly disemboweled him. The man gurgled and groaned as his innards, fat, and bodily fluids spilled out all over the ground. He collapsed to his side and started breathing heavily while Maximus got on all fours and moaned in pain. He was drooling profusely, his jaw hanging from his face, the bone severely damaged. Teeth fell from Maximus’ mouth and clattered on the ground, and the beast grunted as he felt the bones in his head cracking and the muscles tightening. He reached around his jaw and shouted as he snapped it back in place. It still hung limply, but he knew it would heal in due time.

“Fackah…fackan’ shick!” he mumbled, unable to speak properly.

The werewolf panted and bled from his head, his face still stinging from the shotgun pellets. He panted and spluttered as he headed for the man’s house, stumbling around the ground. He reached the front door and shouted as he kicked it in again, where he found the teenager wielding a kitchen knife.

Easy prey, he thought. That’s more like it.

_______________________________

Dylan clapped his hands together as he looked at the other three people sitting on the couch. He started pacing back and forth as he rubbed his gloved hands together.

“So, we’re four teens stuck in a house. No adults. Big ol’ scary monster. Okay, the way I see it, this could end three ways! The bad ending: everyone dies, this werewolf dude lives.”

“That’s cliché as all hell though,” Mark pointed out.

“Exactly! So the good ending: we make it out alive, we kill the bad guy, we escape!”

“That is _also_ cliché.”

“Well yeah, but cliché isn’t bad! Just unoriginal!”

“Oh my—what’s the third ending?” Mark asked, humoring Dylan.

“Easy! Turns out that this whole thing is just a dream!”

Rachel shook her head and huffed. “I’m hoping that’s what ends up happening. This whole killer werewolf bullshit sounds like some shitty B-movie. Are we gonna encounter a whalewolf next?”

“This _is_ a werewolf!” Mark pointed out.

“I know. I said _whale_ wolf.”

Dylan’s eyes widened and he smiled. “Oh my fucking god, is that actually a thing? Are we gonna see a live whalewolf too?!”

Boog stood up from the couch and walked around, looking at the doors. “Rachel, how long ago did you call the cops?”

“I dunno; it’s been a while now. At this point we’re probably better off just finding a car and driving to the police station ourselves.”

Boog blinked. “You’re saying we should _leave_ our fortified sanctuary and wander outside into the darkness?”

Before Rachel could respond, Mark lifted his head and spoke. “Wait, what about those patrol deputies here? There was some guy who stopped me earlier and asked where my parents were; maybe he could call for help over his radio.”

“Again, that would require us going outside,” Boog pointed out. “We’ll stick with the original plan: stay here and wait it out until morning.”

Mark rubbed his forehead. “That-that never works, Boog.”

“Sure it does! We just gotta arm ourselves with a lotta weapons—”

“That’s why this won’t work! We don’t have any weapons we can use!”

Boog paused. And then he lowered his fluffy arms and huffed.

“Shit.”

_______________________________

It was a mistake. Everyone made them. She knew she had to pay the price eventually, but it was a common error. The dispatcher didn’t know why she was sitting in the chilly interrogation room with nothing inside except for a metal table and two metal chairs. The officer’s hand shook as she looked at the two-way window on the right side of the room, fully aware that her superiors were watching her. The woman rubbed her hands together before she stood up from the chair and leaned against the wall. Suddenly, two officers came into the room, both of whom had short hair and beards. The burly dark-skinned man on the left gestured for the female officer to sit down, while the light-skinned man on the right just rubbed his nose.

“Sorry about the wait, Giggs,” the dark-skinned man relied. “Tully and I just figured out a way to sort this mess out.”

Giggs exhaled and sniffled. “I-I made a mistake, okay? I-I didn’t know that kid was telling the truth! You have—”

Tully raised a hand and nodded. “We get it, Giggs. Umberton and I get it. You were neglectful. Maybe out of boredom, maybe you were tired, maybe you were having a bad night. Point is, those deaths are on your head, Giggs. No one else’s.”

Giggs sniffled again and wiped a tear forming under her left eye. “Yes…I know. I-I know you’ll have to punish me—”

Umberton chuckled and shook his head. “Punish _you_? No, no, no, no—you’ve fucked this entire station. Crime has been going _up_ this past month. We have the lowest arrest rates in the entire county, probably this side of the state. Bodies are piling up everywhere. And now? Now…just to make things worse, we come across a crime that _might_ have been prevented if one lazy-ass dispatcher wasn’t an idiot and sent out another patrol car to investigate.”

“But Eddie and-and Meyer and Ringar were already in that subdivision!”

Umberton shook his head again. “Won’t matter. I.A. is gonna look into all this. They’re gonna find your logs. You’re gonna get fired, probably arrested. I’m acting sheriff, so this shit’s gonna fall on my doorstep; Tully’s the chief deputy, so the shit is gonna fling his way too. Both our jobs are gone. We’re probably gonna be saying ‘paper or plastic’ in a couple weeks. Everyone else? At best, they’ll be demoted to a bunch of traffic cops. The mayor will lose her shit, and this _entire_ county will be ranked as one of the top five worst counties to live in because of its absurdly-high crime stats and police negligence.”

“…Fuck.”

That was all she could say. From the way the officers were talking, it sounded like everything was already set in stone. There was no way around all the mistakes she made that night, nor was there any way of getting past the fact that many innocent people had died because of a small error.

“That’s one option,” Tully started.

Giggs blinked. “What?”

“I said, that’s one option. The bad one. Y’see, as far as we know? No one called us. We didn’t hear about any murders. Nothing happened down in the Green Water subdivision.”

“But I said—”

“They were all pranks, right? Nothing you can confirm.”

Giggs huffed. “You don’t understand. Eddie specifically radioed me! His call is in our logs!”

“Is it?”

Giggs stared at the two officers. She started to put the pieces together in her head and exhaled softly. A soft laugh rose from her throat.

“There are three deputies down there. _Our_ deputies—people who work with us.”

“And it’ll be such a tragedy informing their next of kin that they perished in the line of duty.”

“But all those innocent people—”

“Right, those guys,” Umberton said. “Such a shame…so many lives taken, so many children murdered when all they wanted was to get some candy from their neighbors. How sad. In fact, it’s so sad that it’ll gain media attention—which we both know the mayor will love. People will exclaim ‘terrorism, terrorism!’ and all that bullshit. Everyone will light their candles, sing songs, and talk about this tragedy for years to come. And all these killings will force the neighboring counties to assist us with our jobs. We’ll get more money, more deputies, more vehicles, more—”

“This is _bullshit_ ,” Giggs snarled.

Tully smiled. “What do you mean? We’re cops, Giggs! We’re trying to help your ass out!”

“You-you can’t just—”

“I am not losin’ my fuckin’ job because of _your_ fuck-up, Giggs,” Umberton snarled. “We’re gonna make this simple: you’re gonna get up. You’re gonna go home. You’re gonna go to sleep. That’s it. We’ll handle the rest.”

Giggs scowled as she stared at the men in front of her. She flicked her eyes up into the corner of the room, where she saw the camera pointed directly at them. Umberton scoffed and smirked.

“Camera’s off. Audio’s off. No one can hear this conversation but us.”

Giggs huffed. “So that’s it, huh? I just go home?”

Tully nodded. “You just go home.”

Sighing, Umberton turned around and reached for the door handle. He opened up the interrogation room door and chuckled. “See you tomorrow, Giggs!”

After the two men left, Giggs just sat by herself in the cold room, pondering everything the men just told her. She slowly covered her mouth and began to tremble. It wasn’t bad enough that they knew about the murders and weren’t offering assistance. Now they were sweeping it all under the rug, and pretending that the giant, putrid lump hiding beneath the fabric was just dust that they would “discover” later on. Giggs rose from her chair and exhaled as she stared at the door. She opened it up and entered one of the corridors, where she could see the seemingly quiet police station that had less than ten people inside the building right now. She headed for the locker room, changed into her regular clothing, and promptly headed outside the station. Giggs smiled and said goodbye to a few officers before pushing open the glass doors and walking outside. When she stepped out into the cold wind, Giggs panted and nonchalantly walked over to her dark green car. As soon as she got inside, she started the ignition and drove out onto the street, heading in the opposite direction of her house. While she drove, Giggs removed her cell phone from her pocket and dialed Eddie’s phone number.

“Giggs! What the fuck is going on?! Why hasn’t backup showed up yet?!”

“I’ll explain when I get there. Just stay put and keep anyone you see out of danger!”

Giggs hung up the phone and pressed her foot down on the gas pedal.

_______________________________

Maximus groaned as he sat on the counter in the bathroom. Having severed the teenager’s head, the werewolf was free to relax and let all of his wounds heal. He breathed heavily and coughed as he listened to his body repairing itself. The beast twitched several times as his chest began to itch, the pellets from the shells still lodged inside his flesh. He looked down at his bare midriff and picked at the scars, digging out two pieces of shrapnel and letting it fall in the sink. Then he spluttered and grabbed his jaw again, grunting when he jerked it to the right and listened to the mandible popping again. He smacked his lips and spat out three chipped teeth before opening his mouth and looking in the mirror, double-checking to ensure that he hadn’t lost other teeth.

“Piece of shit,” he said, his mouth and face still in pain.

Still healing, Maximus looked at all the contacts listed in the teenager’s cell phone and randomly scrolled through them all. He sent a message to one person, getting frustrated as his giant fingers and claws kept inputting the wrong letters. Then he forwarded the same text to everyone else.

“Hey. Helping adults take kids home. Anyone seen Mark?”

For a while, Maximus didn’t get any responses. Some of the responses he did get were the likes of “who’s Mark?” or “dunno” or someone explaining in thorough detail that Mark was a hustler. The werewolf assumed they were talking about a different Mark and disregarded the message. He set the phone down and exhaled, sitting in the bathroom for another ten minutes before he got another response.

“He’s fine. At Boog’s house.”

Maximus looked at the person who replied and grinned. “Gotcha,” he said, before sending another text.

“k. Thanx.”

And with that, Maximus put the phone in his pocket and slid off the counter. He grunted a few times as he kept limping forward, still recovering, but he managed to stay on his footpaws. Once he was outside, the werewolf started sniffing the air. The smell of humans was growing fainter; Maximus assumed that more people were hiding inside their houses and someone had informed them about all the killings. The werewolf licked his lips and started wandering around the street, looking for the closest human being he could find.

“Buncha rabbits hidin’ in yer holes, eh? Heh, that’s fine…that is fine by me.”

The beast walked around the road for another five minutes before he found another seemingly vacant house. Feeling much better, the canine walked over to the front door of the house and lifted his leg. Then he shook his head and lowered it.

“Uh-uh, not again.”

Maximus looked at the window two feet from the door and shrugged. He snarled as he balled his right paw into a fist and punched the glass. And then Maximus’ ears twitched when a high-pitched alarm started ringing.

“FUCK!”

The werewolf whined and backed away from the house as the alarm kept blaring. He snarled and quickly ran in the opposite direction, holding his sensitive ears as the alarm continued to ring. Somewhere down the road, Eddie could hear the house alarm going off and quickly drove to the location to investigate. Maximus was gone by the time he arrived, but he could see the broken window and the giant paw prints in the soil. The police officer shined his flashlight at the prints before he growled and pressed his foot down on the gas pedal.

“Fuck this holiday,” he told himself.


	5. Let’s Come Up With a Plan

Dylan exhaled as he lied on the floor in the living room. Rachel was busy checking all of the tools she intended to use as a weapon in case someone broke in. Mark was searching for ways to kill a werewolf using Boog’s phone. Boog, however, was busy eating soup with his fake paws and his Teddy bear head off. Rachel’s brother rolled over onto his stomach before he grunted and stood up.

“Okay. Like I know that there’s some killer animal hunting us and everything, but seriously…this is boring.”

Mark glared at Dylan and exhaled. “I’m sure you and Maximus would be great friends.”

Dylan rolled his eyes. “Don’t be like that; you know you’re bored too! It’s Halloween! We’re a buncha kids; we should be out eating candy or throwing toilet paper onto people’s houses! What’re we gonna tell everyone when we go back to school on Monday? ‘Oh, I played games at Boog’s house. Then I went to sleep. Then I woke up. The end.’ I’m sorry, but that’s not a cool story to tell everyone! No one gives a shit about you sitting on your ass!”

Boog blinked as he looked at Dylan and slurped up more soup. “You can’t sit on an ass. You can _use_ your ass for sitting.”

“Don’t get snarky with me!”

Boog smirked at Dylan. And then he said something to him in Spanish. Dylan gritted his teeth.

“Don’t do that shit either!”

“Right. Sorry. I apologize for being Dominican.”

The four kids waited in the living room for another ten minutes. Boog finished eating his soup and disposed of his dirty dishes before putting his head and paws back on.

“Hey, Mark. Say that it’s too quiet,” Dylan demanded.

“Why? That’s just begging for danger.”

“That’s the point. Maybe if you say that, something interesting will happen!”

A large object thudded against the window, causing Dylan to yelp. He stumbled backwards and collapsed onto his back, while his sister immediately sprang into action and shoved all the children away from the glass. She picked up a metal baseball bat and panted, while Mark reached over and grabbed the handle of his kitchen knife. Rachel looked at the cracked glass and relaxed for a moment. She knew all about the “traditions” of this special holiday; it obviously wasn’t anything.

“False alarm. Probably just Toby and his goons bein’ assholes again.”

Dylan grunted as he sat up and stood. “I swear, if that idiot finds our house and pelts it with eggs again—”

Dylan yelped a second time when someone ran up to the window and slapped his giant paws against the glass. He stumbled and collapsed onto his back again, and this time Rachel and the others were on full alert. Mark’s heart started racing again when he gazed at the dreaded yellow eyes and shaggy black fur. The beast’s breath fogged up the glass as he exhaled, and drool was running down the corners of his mouth.

“Hello!” Maximus said cheerfully.

“Fuck…that’s him. That’s-that’s the guy, Rachel,” Mark whimpered.

Boog walked closer to the window with his full costume on and breathed heavily into his Teddy bear head. He slowly cocked his head in confusion as he gazed at Maximus.

“ _This_ is the werewolf you were talkin’ about? Guy looks like some crappy animatronic.”

Maximus flicked his eyes at Boog and snorted. “ _I_ look like a crappy animatronic?”

Dylan rose from the floor again, now grasping his head after banging it against the table. He removed his hat and winced, feeling a lump just above his forehead. The child looked at the werewolf and chuckled.

“Oh, that’s a good one buddy, scaring me like that! You got any special talents with your costume, or do you just walk around howling and going ‘A-bloogy-woogy-woo’?”

Maximus smirked. “I have the ability to piss on the floor. Wanna see?”

Dylan smirked back at the canine and was tempted to let him inside the house. Rachel smacked Dylan in the back of his head and shoved him back down on the couch while Rachel approached the glass and snorted.

“Get lost asshole. We don’t know you and the whole neighborhood is on lockdown. Some creep in a werewolf costume is breaking into everyone’s houses and killing people.”

Maximus groaned and rolled his eyes. “Ohhhh, and because I’m a _black_ werewolf, you automatically think it’s me! I betcha if I was white-furred, you ass—” Maximus backed away from the window and burst out laughing. Rachel exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose while the oversized canine nearly fell on the ground hooting from laughter. By the time he finished, he was coughing and had to control himself so he could speak properly. “I’m sorry, sorry—even I couldn’t finish that statement!”

“Dude, what the hell are you, sixteen?”

“Technically, yeah.”

Mark looked at Maximus and Rachel as they kept speaking with one another. He whined as he reached up and tugged on her shirt.

“Stop entertaining him; that’s what he wants! Make him go away!”

Maximus spotted Mark and grinned widely at him. “HEEEEEEEY, MARKIE-BOY! It’s so nice to see you again! C’mere, c’mere, let’s have a closer look at you!”

Shivering, Mark slowly walked up to the window and stood beside Rachel. The werewolf licked his slobbery mouth as he stared at the child still clad in his pirate costume. He ran his claws against the window, leaving four huge marks and dents in the glass.

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want, Mark.”

Mark scoffed as he scratched the back of his head. “What, more breath mints? You got a full bag of ‘em, remember?”

Dylan and Boog couldn’t help but snicker when they listened to Mark’s snarky reply. Even Rachel smirked to herself when she noticed Maximus’ face turn from a hungry grin to a displeased glare. Maximus exhaled and shook his head.

“I want you to join me, Markie-boy! All it takes is a little nibble; it won’t hurt much!”

“What the hell kind of man asks a preteen if they wanna get bitten?! How sick are you?!” Rachel shouted.

“Rachel, I told you: this is an _actual_ werewolf. Just—let me deal with this.” Mark turned and looked at Maximus again. “You know my answer. I-I’m not doin’ it. I’m not bein’ part of your sick game! What kind of-of thing enjoys shit like this?!”

Maximus panted a few times against the glass. He squinted as he looked at the floor and noticed that one of the games had recently been played. Maximus pointed at the open game case and blinked.

“What’s that? _Grand Theft Auto_?”

“Hey, you’re not playing that! I had to raise money throughout the summer to buy that!” Boog said.

“Oh. And I’m sure you love it, don’t you?”

“Who doesn’t love violence?”

Maximus snarled and looked at Mark. “Ya hear that? ‘Who doesn’t love violence,’ he said. And there it is. You humans are no different from me. You just need to release! You’re all vile, violent creatures—just like me! You all enjoy these-these shitty horror movies, these M-rated, swear-filled, trigger-happy games that _encourage_ you to murder innocent people, to be in gangs, to shoot up and blow up buildings! And yet all you fucking hypocrites have the audacity to tell _me_ that I’m a sadist!”

Boog stepped closer to the window and took off his bear head. He didn’t seem nervous or worried like Mark and Rachel were. If anything, he was the only person in the house who was treating the situation nonchalantly.

“See…that’s your problem. That game down there? That’s a work of _fiction_. It’s _fake_. It. Is not. Real. I am so sick and tired of hearing whiny _pendejos_ on the internet say ‘Oh, well he shot up the school ‘cause he played too many video games!’ or some shit like that. Let me tell you somethin’: video games are the reason why we _don’t_ shoot up buildings. It’s _because_ it’s violent that we get to experience horrible tragedies that we _know_ would have horrible outcomes if we tried to do them in real life. I play violent video games all the fuckin’ time; you don’t see me dressed as Jason Voorhees. I’m not wielding a fake chainsaw; I’m not walking around carrying a toy gun in my pocket. I’m a friggin’ Teddy bear for crying out loud! You on the other hand? You’re just some grungy, whiny _puta_ who didn’t know how to control his anger, so you thought killing _actual_ people would be fun. And it’s not. It’s _disgusting_. You’re a disgusting, vile, repugnant pile of _mierda_ , and that’s all you’ll _ever_ be.”

Maximus scowled the entire time. After Boog finished talking, he moved away from the window and snorted. Boog just smirked and folded his arms, while Dylan grabbed a wrench from the table and promptly dropped it in front of Boog. Boog looked at Dylan and raised an eyebrow.

“Why’d you do that?”

“I don’t have a mic.”

The werewolf huffed as he kept staring at the children and teenager. He reached up and scratched his chin, rethinking his strategy. Mark, meanwhile, started to settle down. Even if the monster had murdered people right in front of him, it pleased him to know that the creature’s pride could still be wounded. After the long pause, Rachel stepped in front of the window and snorted.

“The police are coming. You may as well just give up now.”

Maximus shook his head. “No…I don’t think so.”

Before Rachel could say anything else, Maximus bent down and picked up the object he threw at the window earlier. And then everyone screamed and backed away upon realizing it was a severed head. Blood was still dripping from where the skull had been torn off, much to everyone’s disgust. The sight of everyone whimpering and cowering behind a large object made him smile again, and he dropped the head.

“What the fuck did you do to Charleen?!” Rachel asked.

“Oh? This bitch? S’real easy, using them cell phones. Don’t you recall her asking you where Mark was?”

Rachel looked at the messages on her phone and realized Charleen texted her earlier, and she unknowingly exposed Mark’s location to Maximus. She shivered while Maximus continued to breathe heavily.

“Let me in,” he growled.

“NO!” Mark shouted.

“Let me in the fuckin’ house.”

“JUST LEAVE US ALONE!” Mark lowered his head and covered his ears, shaking as he sat down in front of the couch and tried to ignore the monster’s gaze. “Please…please just leave us alone.”

The werewolf stared at the children in the living room. He took his paws off the glass and shrugged. “All right. See ya!”

Mark slowly lifted his head. Much to his surprise, Maximus was walking away from the window. “Wait…” he stood up and ran over to the glass. “Hey—HEY! So that’s it? After all that, you’re just gonna leave?”

“Shhh—shut up, dumbass! You _want_ him to break in here?!” said Dylan.

Maximus turned back around and walked over to the glass again. “Well, yeah. You did say ‘please.’ I suppose I can do that much.”

Mark squinted as he looked at the werewolf. He shook his head. “Uh-uh. No, you-you’re up to something. Why would you give up that easily?”

“Oh, I’m not givin’ up. I’m just letting my turkey bake in the oven for a little while longer. In the meantime,” said Maximus, before sighing, “I’m gonna run around this neighborhood and have some more snacks!”

Eyes wide, Mark backed away from the window as his heart sank. “No,” he whispered.

Maximus grinned and nodded. “I’m gonna break into every house I see. I’m gonna kill any human I see. I’m gonna slurp up as much juicy flesh as I can. But don’t you worry, Markie-boy! I won’t touch this house! You have my word! I swear I won’t even try to break in. Everyone else is fucked though. So, go on. Go cower under your bedsheets until morning. Go lock yourselves in the bathroom until the cops show up. You’ll be all right. That is, until I run out of prey. _Then_ I’m gonna come back. And I _will_ break in. And I _will_ kill all of you. Starting with Discount Freddy Fazbear over there.” 

“ _Hijo de puta_ ,” Boog murmured.

As Maximus backed away from the window, he raised his paws up multiple times. “Lift them frowns, lift ‘em! Smile everybody! It’s Halloween, the best holiday of the year! Time to have some fun!”

But no one in the house smiled. They just stared at Maximus as he howled with laughter and sprinted away. When the werewolf left, Dylan stopped cowering from behind the couch and exhaled.

“Fuck…oh fuck.” He reached down and grabbed his crotch before sighing with relief. “Thank god I took that piss earlier. Okay, u-um, sis? I’ll-I’ll get the bedsheets and take ‘em to the basement.”

“Good, I’ll get the pillows.”

Boog looked down at his costume and shrugged. “Think I’m fine sleepin’ in this.”

“Great,” said Rachel. “Now we’ll just wait—”

“No,” said Mark firmly. “We can’t…we can’t just hide, guys.”

“ARE YOU SHITTING ME?! THAT’S THE PERFECT FUCKING PLAN!” Dylan screamed.

“Obviously you weren’t listening, Dylan! He’s just ignoring us for _now_! This is no different from Toby stealing lunch money from those nerds! Sure, yeah, some days he’ll leave ‘em alone, but he always comes back and picks on ‘em, and they never stand up to him! They just hide or they don’t even bring their lunch money ‘cause they know it’s gonna get stolen!”

“Again, Mark, that is a horrible comparison!” Rachel explained. “You’re talking about a bully stealing money. This is a homicidal maniac who _will_ kill us if we leave this house! Why is it so hard to wait for the police—”

“You called the police over an hour ago! I haven’t even seen those patrolmen pass this street a single time! Help is not coming, Rachel! We’re on our own! I tried getting other adults to help me earlier; every single house I went to Maximus already went to! As far as I’m concerned, all the adults in this neighborhood are dead!”

Boog’s eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”

“No, Boog. No one’s coming to help us. And you heard what Maximus said. The people who _are_ still alive? He’s gonna hunt them all down—”

“Like dogs?” Dylan said with a smirk. 

Mark scowled at him, and Dylan dropped his smile. “Sorry…I know, bad timing.”

Mark exhaled. “There are other children here, Rachel. I already saw him snap a little girl’s neck! Who knows how many other kids were killed while we hid out here? Who knows who else is gonna die while we sit on our asses doing nothing?”

Dylan glared at Boog. “Oh, so you’re not gonna crawl up _his_ ass for using that phase?”

Boog took off his fake head and shoved it in Dylan’s face so hard that he fell over and banged his head against the table. Mark continued.

“Look, we’ve seen this before. There’s a giant unstoppable force, and yet a buncha kids end up stopping it while all the adults are stupid idiots. We’ll be fine.”

“Okay, fine, genius,” said Rachel in a condescending tone. “Since you don’t wanna be smart and stay here where it’s safe, how do we defeat this werewolf?”

Mark shrugged. “We find some silver and stab him in the head a bunch of times.”

“Yes, okay. Let’s-let’s just go find silver lying around somewhere.” Rachel huffed. “So let me get this straight: you expect a teenager and three preteens dressed as Mario, a pirate, a pop singer, and a friggin’ Teddy bear, to go outside and stop a murderous werewolf who is clearly stronger and deadlier than all four of us combined?” 

Mark blinked. “Rachel, when you say it like that, it sounds like you’re _expecting_ us to die.”

“Here’s the thing: I’m the oldest. I’m the most responsible. Therefore what I say goes,” said Rachel firmly. “And I say that we’re all staying here!”

Mark growled. “That’s not fair! How come—”

“I got an idea,” Boog interrupted. “Let’s vote on it. That’s fair, right?”

Dylan grunted as he sat up from the floor. He rubbed the bump on his head and nodded. “Ow…good point, let’s do that. All right, who votes we go out and kill a smelly werewolf and go save the world?”

Dylan stood up as everyone voted. He and Mark raised one hand, while Boog raised both of his hands.

“All right, who votes we stay home and be bored all night?”

Rachel raised her hand while everyone else kept their arms down. Rachel smirked as she looked at the children.

“My vote counts for three. And a half.”

Dylan scoffed. “C’mon, that’s bullshit! You can’t cheat like that!”

Rachel shrugged. “That’s too bad. You all saw the votes. Majority rules!”

Boog nodded. “Great! Guess we’re saving the neighborhood then.”

Rachel raised her left eyebrow. “Um. Did you not see the votes? I told you, my vote counts for three and a half.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still four against. I raised both my hands, see?”

Boog raised his hands again. His left one was bare, but his right one was covered with the Teddy bear’s paw.

“Mark and Dylan voted. I voted,” he said, wiggling his left hand, “and Teddy voted!” he finished, wiggling his right hand. “So that’s four.”

Rachel scowled and felt so dumbfounded that all three boys couldn’t help but smirk at her. She stuttered a few times and tried to think of some form of comeback, but nothing came out of her mouth. The teenager exhaled and pinched the bridge of her nose as she shut her eyes. Then she shook her head.

“Fuck it. Fine, we’ll go. But don’t start whining to me if this werewolf starts tearing your guts out!”

Dylan and Boog cheered while Mark just smiled, happy that he found someone who could aid him in his quest to stop this madness. Rachel just lowered her hand and sighed heavily over the decision she just made.

“This _cannot_ end well…”

_______________________________

Maximus grumbled to himself as he walked away from the house. He didn’t take what those children told him into mind. They were all a bunch of stupid kids—stupid kids he’d end up killing soon. And yet, as the werewolf continued to walk, he found himself snarling repeatedly and couldn’t stop curling his fist. Maximus found a car parked nearby and grumbled to himself as he stared at it. He snarled as he placed his claws against the side of the vehicle and slowly dragged them against the doors, leaving giant claw marks as he scraped off the paint. Then the werewolf exhaled harshly as he cracked his knuckles and swore to himself. His heart wouldn’t stop beating fast, and his blood felt like it was boiling. Part of the fur on his nape started to stand up. He was about to break into one of the houses nearby when he heard footsteps from around the corner of the street. Maximus snorted as he saw a group of kids and some adult all dressed in different costumes turn on the sidewalk and walk in his direction. And just like that, all his frustrations went away.

“Do we have to go home now?”

“You heard what that officer said. Someone is around this neighborhood walking around in a werewolf suit causing mayhem!” said the adult.

One of the smaller girls pointed forward as Maximus jogged over to them. “That-that guy?”

Maximus skidded to a halt in front of the children and smiled at them, waving. “Hey kids!”

The adult immediately took out a can of pepper spray. Maximus held up his paws and backed away. “Whoa, whoa, hold on! I’m just—I’m saying hi!”

“Just…just back away if you know what’s good for you!”

Maximus looked down at his body and rubbed his paws around it. “Oh, this? Heh…guess I’m unlucky, huh? I just _had_ to pick this Halloween to wear this costume! And it just so happens someone else is wearing a werewolf outfit and vandalizing the neighborhood!” Maximus scratched behind his ear. “Ain’t that a coincidence?”

The adult was still very cautious of Maximus, while the six children couldn’t stop admiring his “costume.”

“Whoooooa, he looks like a real doggy!”

“I wonder if his costume’s got fleas.”

“Ewww, he smells like a werewolf too!”

“Lookit how big his paws are!”

The adult standing around the crowd of children struggled to hold them all back as they tried to walk forward so they could touch Maximus. After he got them all to calm down, the adult exhaled and stood in front of them.

“So you’re not that maniac?”

Maximus shook his head. “Nah, you got the wrong guy! Just a friendly teen who got coaxed into wearing this silly ol’ thing!”

“You should head home. There’s a curfew ‘round these parts.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. But…y’know. Since I ran into you, perhaps it’s better if I tag along? Not safe walking around the street by myself late at night.”

The other kids started talking at once again.

“He’s right. The Boogeyman might get ya!”

“It’s safer if we travel together!”

“We could give him a bath once we get home.”

“C’mon, he’s the only person we’ve met with a costume as cool-looking as that!”

The adult huffed. “All right, all right, fine! He’ll come with us.”

Maximus nodded and wagged his tail. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“Just walk in front of us where I can see you.”

Smiling meekly, Maximus scratched the back of his head. “Um…I wouldn’t advise that. I’m uh…I’m a little loose back there, y’see,” he said, pointing backwards with his thumb. “Would be best if I’m further downwind so none of the kids have to suffer.”

Some of the children automatically understood what the werewolf was talking about and giggled to themselves. The adult just huffed and shook his head. “Okay, fine. But don’t try anything.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

The adult turned around and started to walk down the street with the group of kids. Maximus followed behind them closely, drooling and looking at his claws.


	6. Let’s Get Dangerous

Considering all that had happened that night, the group found it eerie that the neighborhood was so silent all of a sudden. No howling could be heard, no one was screaming bloody murder, and no one in the group could hear any trick-or-treaters sprinting for their lives. At best, they found discarded bags or buckets on the ground, or they came across partial outfits that had been ripped or torn. But none of them discovered any bodies, and the only sounds they heard were their footsteps, the wind blowing on occasion, and the crickets that wouldn’t stop chirping around them. So Rachel could not understand why the children were acting like they were in a _Mission: Impossible_ film. Mark was crouching down in front of a car, holding a BB gun he found in Boog’s bedroom. He peeked around the corner of the car, double-checking to make sure that the coast was clear, before he looked at Boog and Dylan and nodded. Rachel could only watch as all three of them snuck across the street in the most ridiculous way possible. Boog, being as fluffy and huge as he was in his costume, shielded the other two boys behind his bulk.

Dylan, meanwhile, stayed crouched behind the walking Teddy bear before he hopped to his right and rolled underneath a car. Mark stood up from his hiding spot and walked across the street slowly, aiming his BB gun in every direction, before he sprinted for a tree and climbed up it faster than a monkey. Rachel rose her eyebrow at how surprisingly agile Mark was before she exhaled and nonchalantly walked out into the road, carrying nothing but a baseball bat. Dylan poked his head out from under the car and whispered at her.

“Psst! HEY! You’re not usin’ your stealth! You’re gonna blow our cover!”

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking at a bush that was too small for Boog to hide in. “ _I’m_ gonna blow your cover.”

She walked over to the bush and lightly tapped her bat into it, bonking Boog between his costume’s ears. He grunted and stood up.

“Ow. I can still feel, y’know! This suit isn’t _that_ fluffy!”

“C’mon kids, let’s go already! You’re wasting time acting like action movie stars!”

The three boys emerged from their hiding spots and quickly regrouped, all armed with their “deadly” weapons. Dylan rubbed some dirt off his blue overalls and red shirt before snorting at Rachel.

“This ain’t no action movie, Rachel. It’s straight-up horror. And it’s our job to save all the useless adults who can’t do shit right!”

“No, it’s your job to stay _in bed_ while teenagers like _me_ save the day.”

“We’re not ‘children,’ Rachel! We’re preteens. Get it right!”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Okay fine, preteens.”

Mark rubbed his nose as he twirled his BB gun around. “You should be lucky, Rachel. If you had a boyfriend, teenagers like you would be spending their time making out in some quiet spot by the lake or something and getting your throat slashed when you tried to have sex.”

Dylan smirked as he looked at Rachel. “Aren’t you glad you broke up with your boyfriend? OW!”

Rachel smacked Dylan so hard that his red cap fell off his head. He quickly retrieved it before the wind blew it away and huffed as he placed it back on his scalp.

“Our reasons for breaking up aren’t any of your concern. We just…ugh, just keep walking.”

“Wait a second,” warned Mark. “I hear something…”

Mark gripped his BB gun and flashlight with his hands as he crept down the street slowly, arriving at a four-way intersection. The wind blew furiously in their direction, causing Mark to shiver while Dylan had to hold down his hat with his gloved hands. Suddenly, they heard a faint buzz, and Mark yelped and turned around.

“Sorry, my bad,” said Boog as he took off his right paw. “My phone went off.”

Mark exhaled as Boog stuck his right hand into a pocket that was built into his suit. He took out his cell phone before answering the call. Dylan grumbled as he stared at the preteen.

“Is this _really_ the time?”

“Dude, it’s my parents. They’ve been freaking out since I haven’t called ‘em all night. They—” Boog huffed and spoke into the phone. “YES, _SI_!”

What happened next were a series of fast-paced phrases and shouts that Dylan and the others assumed was either Spanish or Portuguese. Dylan slammed his hand against his forehead and huffed.

“The werewolf’s gonna hear us.”

“Just let him take the call,” said Mark. “Least his parents actually give a shit about their son.”

Dylan looked over at Mark’s face and saw a faint glimmer of scorn, if not envy, in his eyes. He stayed quiet, knowing now wasn’t the time to joke about the situation. Rachel shined her flashlight out in the distance after hearing more noises, but found nothing. The indignant Dominican continued to jabber away into his phone while Dylan looked at the two small toy guns in his hands, one loaded with lemon juice, the other with sixteen BBs. After another two minutes of chatting, Boog sighed heavily and hung up his phone before sliding it back into his costume’s pocket. Then Boog put his paw and head back on and nodded.

“We’re good. Let’s go.”

The crew returned to exploring the streets again, moving their way down the road in hopes of finding any survivors or someone carrying some form of silver. Dylan noticed that Boog was straggling behind and slowed down to match his pace. He twirled his gun filled with lemon juice a few times before nudging Boog.

“Hey. You look aplexed. You all right, bud?”

Boog sighed deeply into his head. “I dunno…I’m just…wait, that’s not a word.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not in the dictionary; it’s not a word.”

“Well, I heard it in a TV show. Therefore, that makes it a word!”

“That makes no fucking sense! So if someone said ‘I’d like to buy an Ass Mac,’ you’d assume that’s a giant hamburger made out of cow asses?!”

Dylan paused and rubbed his chin. “That sounds right, yeah!”

“YOU—forget it. I don’t know why I bother talkin’ to you.”

Dylan noticed Boog walking quickly to catch up with Mark and Rachel. He quickly rushed up to Boog and grabbed his right shoulder.

“Hey man, seriously. You know how my brain is sometimes. I just…” Dylan huffed. “Look, maybe it’s better if you talk and I just shut up. That’ll be better.”

“Okay, fine. So basically, Mami and Papi were goin’ on and on about how I didn’t call them, and that it’s past midnight and I’m not in bed and still out trick-or-treating, and that I’m in danger, and blah blah blah blah blah,” he said, flapping his fingers each time he said “blah” to imitate their mouths moving. “So I told ‘em, ‘if you’re so fuckin’ concerned about my well-being, you shouldn’t have left my ass at home by myself!’ Then we argued about Papi’s job and…” Boog groaned. “I just told ‘em ‘I love you’ after all that crap and hung up.”

Dylan shook his head and scoffed. “Fuckin’ hypocrites, all of ‘em. They treat us like babies, yet a grown-ass woman will throw a bitch-fit in the middle of a store because some florist didn’t do her order correctly. They think we’re idiots, yet my cousin is in college and spending his free time making a game, while my next-door neighbor has to walk up to our house and ask me how to turn his computer _on_. It’s like, okay, I know our generation is annoying. ‘Hashtag this! Hashtag that! Hashtag, hashtag, hashtag!’ I get that. But at least we’re not idiots! We don’t go around lecturing people our age goin’ ‘back in our day, we didn’t have durr Internet! We didn’t have cable! We worked for a livin’! An’ hurp-a-durp-a-durr-dee-DUUR!’ And it’s like, ‘yes, we get it! Now shut the fuck up and let me live my horrible, mainstream life you despise so much!’”

Dylan slowed down and shut his eyes. Exhaling, he lowered his head before flicking his eyes at Rachel. “Sometimes I’m glad me and Rachel don’t have parents.”

Boog punched Dylan in his left elbow. “Dude, don’t say shit like that.”

“I am. Rachel’s only four years older than me. We’re in the same generation; we get along just fine. I mean yeah, I annoy her and she smacks me in the head a lot, but that’s just how we are. Boog, you live in a fancy-ass house and your parents left you _by yourself_ and automatically assumed one of your neighbors would check in on you from time to time. Someone could’ve broken in and took all your shit while you were sleeping—you realize that, right?”

“That’s what pissed me off! They’re so worried about how ‘safe’ I am yet they’re thousands of miles away from me!”

“Don’t even get me started on Mark’s parents. I betcha if we went to his house, his parents would’ve given us crack and called it candy.”

Dylan noticed Mark turn his head slightly. He didn’t say anything, and instead looked up ahead and resumed walking beside Rachel. Sighing, Dylan twirled his toy guns again.

“So yeah…fuck parents. Fuck all adults. We’re the ones bustin’ our ass trying to kill this werewolf. What the fuck are the adults doin’? What are your parents doin’? What are Mark’s parents doin’? What are the cops doin’ that Rachel called _two hours ago_? They ain’t doin’ shit. So don’t get upset because you just told your parents to ‘fuck off,’ Boog. I would’ve done the same.”

There was a long silence between the two friends that was only broken by the sound of the wind blowing against their faces. Boog cleared his throat as he straightened out his head.

“Is all that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I dunno. Did it?”

“…No.”

_______________________________

“Stay inside and keep everything locked. Hell, barricade the doors if you need to,” said the officer.

“I-I’m not sure that’s nec—”

“Ma’am, just trust me. Think about your sons. And do _not_ leave the house at all tonight.”

Eddie walked away from the front door of the house and watched as the mother of three kids shut and locked the door. Only a minute later, the lights in the house went out one by one, and he assumed that everyone inside was preparing to go to sleep. The officer walked back to his vehicle when his cell phone rang again. He noticed Giggs’ number and answered.

“Yeah.”

“I just entered the subdivision. Where are you?”

“At 897 Lunar Drive. Just stay near the entrance; I’ll come to you.”

Eddie hung up his cell phone and got into his car. Afterwards, he started up the ignition and drove as fast as he could without going too much over the speed limit. It took him a little over five minutes before he arrived near the Green Water subdivision’s entrance and parked beside a house with a dark green sedan near the driveway. Eddie recognized Giggs’ car and parked in front of it before he shut off his cruiser’s engine and got outside. When he walked over to Giggs’ vehicle, he noticed that she was sitting behind the wheel, shuddering with watery eyes.

“Where the fuck is everyone? You ain’t bringing the cavalry? …Giggs!”

“Huh? …Oh, right.” She opened up the car door and got outside, slamming the door shut. Then she leaned against the door and sniffled, still shaking like a leaf. Eddie walked up to her and blinked.

“What’s wrong?”

She sniffed and wiped her right eye. Then she pointed to a tree across the street. “See that tree right there? With the giant spider hanging from it?”

Eddie looked at the tree and shrugged. “What about it?”

“Um…I-I saw another tree like that driving through here. Except…except there were three children hanging from it. With their stomachs cut open, Eddie.”

Eddie scowled at Giggs before turning away in disgust. “Sick motherfucker.”

“Has-has this been going on all night? There’s some deranged lunatic murdering _children_ and defiling their corpses?!”

Eddie nodded sullenly. “You’d be surprised how…inventive this son of a bitch is. I saw—forget it, I won’t bore you with details. But it’s bad, Giggs. Lotta dead parents and kids here.”

“What about Ringar and Meyer? Why aren’t they—”

“They’re dead too. Whoever this killer is was powerful enough to rip Meyer’s jaw off.”

Giggs whimpered and grabbed her head. Eddie couldn’t tell if she was on the verge of vomiting or bursting out in tears. He listened to her sob quietly and sniffle a few more times.

“I-I should’ve sent another car. That kid called me earlier—”

“Don’t start. This ain’t the time. What matters is that _you’re_ here now, and we have to stop this killer. But while you’re here,” he said, before sighing and leaning against the car, “why don’t you tell me where the fuck my backup is?”

Giggs huffed and looked over at Eddie, her expression slowly shifting from sorrow to anger. “They’re not coming. Umberton and Tully are trying to cover all this shit up. They know I fucked up, but now because of that, they think our station is gonna leave a bad impression on the community. He thinks we’re all gonna get fired, that the station is gonna be in ruins.”

“That makes no fucking sense! Other people had to have called 911!”

“And I’m sure Umberton is either telling the other deputies in our station to ignore calls from this area, or he’s blocking the calls, or he’s erasing the logs from our database—”

“They can’t do that! That-that’s not physically possible! What are these clowns thinking?!”

Eddie let out a frustrated yell before grasping his head. “Okay, okay—let’s assume that _somehow_ they were able to cover up all these logs and they blocked the calls and they convinced everyone that the phone calls from this subdivision were pranks. Fine. There are still over _two dozen_ dead bodies in this area! Probably more! So what happens when someone contacts another sheriff’s department from a different county and tells them this neighborhood is full of dead kids? Then what?!”

Giggs huffed. “Then apparently, we look like the victim of a horrible, horrible tragedy. A lone serial killer sneaks into a subdivision and commits mass murder. Then _all_ surrounding sheriff departments will shower us with more deputies, more money, and more reinforcements to find this killer who vanished into the night. It’ll make us look sympathetic, not apathetic idiots who couldn’t clean their own mess properly.”

“This is bullshit. How fuckin’ stupid can these idiots be?! How the—”

“Eddie,” said Giggs firmly, holding up a hand. “This all started because I _was_ lazy. I _was_ incompetent. I thought it was some kid prank-calling me again. Now look what’s happening.”

“A fuck-up and a cover-up are two _vastly_ different things.”

“Doesn’t matter. Look, we’ll kill Umberton and Tully later. Right now we have to stop this killer; we can’t just abandon these people. And if we go back to the station and confront Umberton and Tully now with no evidence? They’re gonna lock us in a cell overnight and say we’ve gone crazy. By then this whole thing could be over.”

“Can’t we just drive to another sheriff station and explain all this shit?”

Giggs scoffed. “Again, what evidence? ‘Sides, how far is the nearest station from here? Ours takes a solid fifteen minutes to get to. Imagine how far away the next station is. And even if we got there, look at how late it is. Most of the deputies in other counties are probably sleeping; some of these stations are only guarded by two deputies.”

“So we’d just be wasting our time.”

“We’re both here. I got my own handguns and I got a shotgun in the trunk. Let’s take care of this _now_ before anyone else dies, _then_ we’ll expose Umberton and Tully.”

“Fine. I’ve been following some paw prints around here; think I’m getting close to finding the guy.”

“Um…paw prints?”

“It’s a long story…”

_______________________________

Rachel stopped walking when she saw a silhouette a few yards in the distance. She held up a hand and gestured for the three preteens to stay put while she walked forward and investigated the strange shadow.

“What? Did you find him?” Mark whispered.

Rachel shushed Mark before she ventured forward again. As she crept towards the shadow, she scrunched up her face and turned to look at the three preteens.

“You smell that?” she asked.

Boog held up his furry paws. “Hey, don’t look at me. If I fart, I got the smell locked in here.”

“We all used the bathroom, so no one shat themselves,” Dylan added.

“Then what…”

Rachel looked around the corner beside a parked SUV. She started breathing heavily when she saw a pair of small legs lying underneath it. Curious, Mark rushed forward and looked at the same SUV.

“What’s in…oh god.”

It was as though the street had been showered with bloody confetti. The corpses were strewn all over the sidewalk and the street. Rachel and Mark could vaguely make out half a dozen children and preteens, and one body tall enough to be an adult. Some of the blood was still spilling into a nearby storm drain, and it smelled like a few of the corpses’ bowels had emptied. Mark and Rachel walked away from the corpses while Boog and Dylan looked at them with confusion.

“Did you see him?” Boog asked.

“No,” Mark whimpered. “We just…let-let’s just go back and find another route.”

“Um…all right. Which—fuck me.”

They all noticed it too once they turned around. It was a few yards away, but there was no mistaking the silhouette. A dark, shaggy figure was crouched down on the corner of one of the rooftops, with two glowing orbs that shined in the night. Shuddering, Rachel swallowed and turned back around. And then she started walking forward.

“Hey, don’t you dare leave us!” Dylan shouted.

“SHH! I’m not leaving you. Just stay with me.”

“But he’s right—”

“He’s too far away…we’ll draw him in.”

The preteens weren’t sure what else to do. And when they looked back up at the rooftop, they realized that the shadow was gone. So all of them huddled alongside Rachel as she slowly walked down the street. Boog and Dylan whimpered when they passed by some of the bodies on the street, but pressed on. As they walked, Mark double-checked to make sure his BB gun was still loaded while Dylan tightened his grip on his toy guns. Boog could only carry a giant plank of wood in his bear paws, and Rachel was still armed with a metal baseball bat and the knife Mark had earlier. One of them looked behind in the street again and saw Maximus creeping up on them, his shadow growing much larger.

“How far?”

“Um, uh, may-maybe a few meters?” Mark guessed.

Rachel shook her head. “Not close enough. Keep walking.”

Mark groaned and kept up with the group. However, the further they walked, the closer Maximus got. When Boog looked over his shoulder again, Maximus was so close that he could fully see his features. He easily recognized his torn blue shorts, his shaggy black fur and the drool running down his mouth. He hastily walked up to Rachel and tugged on her shirt.

“Um, he’s-he’s getting closer!”

“Not yet!”

Boog whined as he listened to Maximus walking along the ground, his big footpaws pressing down into the asphalt and gravel. Then the werewolf growled and licked his choppers noisily enough for the preteens and teenager to hear.

“Ya havin’ fun yet?” Maximus taunted.

Rachel scowled, and then she stopped walking. She gestured for the preteens to get ready and kept waiting, pretending to be oblivious. At this point, Maximus was so close to the preteens that Dylan and Mark could feel his body heat. Maximus snarled and exhaled against the back of the humans’ heads, causing Dylan and Mark to grimace when they smelled his foul breath. The werewolf growled as he reached over with his furry paw and lightly grazed the back of Dylan’s head with his claws. Dylan whimpered as he shut his eyes and felt the claws moving along his skin and short red hair. And all he could think about was how glad he was that he used the bathroom before he left Boog’s house.

“Now!”

The preteens and teenager all screamed as they turned around and ambushed the werewolf. Maximus shouted when Boog smacked him across his temple, nearly splitting his two-by-four in half. Staggered, the werewolf moved backwards, only to yelp and shout as he was pelted with several BBs. Dylan used one pistol and squirted lemon juice in the canine’s eyes, causing him to howl in pain as he was blinded by the juice. Then he stumbled and felt backwards once Mark shot at his footpaws. A few of the BBs were lodged inside his toes, the tiny balls of metal imbedded into Maximus’ flesh. He shook his head and snarled as he charged for the group, only for Rachel to rush towards him with her bat. She swung it hard and fast, banging the metal bat against the canine’s nose and nearly shattering his nasal cavity in the process. Maximus shouted as the teenager swung the bat against his left kneecap, causing him to stumble and fall on his back. Maximus moaned as he lied on the ground, his body pelted with BBs and his vision still blurred from the acidic juice.

“EAT IT, YOU SON OF A BITCH!” Dylan shouted.

Dylan blinded the canine with his lemon juice again, and Maximus immediately covered his face as the fluids burned his retinas. Three more BBs were embedded into his toes, the tiny balls nearly pressed into his bones. Boog shouted in Spanish before he smashed his chunk of wood against his face two more times, the plank gradually splitting down the middle. Then Boog started slamming the wood around the canine’s chest, hoping he’d have enough force to crack his ribs. Snarling, Maximus reached up and lashed at Rachel’s body, nearly cutting her wrists. She shouted while Maximus rolled along the ground and swiped his claws at Boog’s outfit, tearing through the fluffy material. Boog stumbled, while Mark pressed the trigger on his gun and noticed he was out of ammo.

“Shit,” he murmured.

Maximus staggered as he moved along the ground and got up, struggling to stand properly due to all the BBs in his footpaws. Mark shouted as he tried to bash the gun against Maximus’ face, but the werewolf grabbed his hand and snatched the gun away. Pain soared up the beast’s back as Boog and Rachel smacked their melee weapons against his back simultaneously. Bellowing, Maximus smashed the BB gun across Mark’s jaw before spinning around and kicking Rachel in the chest, nearly cracking a rib. Then Dylan shouted and fired more juice at the canine’s face, only for Maximus to shout as he formed a fist and punched Dylan so hard that he collapsed to the ground and his hat nearly fell off his head. Maximus turned and grinned at Boog.

“Yeah. Do somethin’,” he dared him.

Boog looked at the ground and saw that Mark was massaging his jaw and his hat had fallen off. Rachel was struggling to breathe, gasping and couching, her lungs feeling like they were collapsing. Dylan, meanwhile, was holding his bloody nose and trying (but failing) to stand up. Maximus chuckled as he looked at the group and walked around them.

“Nice try kids! Ouch,” he said, wiggling his toes and feeling the BBs. “Stings a bit, but as far as I’m concerned? I skinned my knees on the ground. Nothin’ a few Band-Aids can’t fix!”

Boog lifted his plank anyway and tried to smack Maximus between the ears. The werewolf grabbed the plank and dug his claws into the wood before snatching it from the preteen. Then he sprang forward, took Boog’s head off, and smacked the wood against his temple. Blood started to run down Boog’s head, and the preteen whined as he writhed around on the ground. Moments later, Maximus snapped the board in half against his knee and tossed the wood on the ground. He proceeded to disarm the group entirely; Maximus broke Mark’s empty BB gun into several pieces before using his powerful paws to crush the barrel of the toy gun Dylan used that was full of lemon juice. Then he walked over to Rachel and snatched the knife from her, tearing the handle from the blade. He picked up the second BB gun and was about to crush it until he noticed it had a few BBs left in it. Maximus rumbled softly just as Mark rose to his feet. And then he pointed the BB gun at Mark’s face and shot him in his left eye. A wide grin spread across Maximus’ face as he listened to the child crying and howling in pain, grasping his wounded eye with one hand while tears flowed down the other.

“STOP IT!” Dylan screamed.

Maximus raised an eyebrow. “Um, no?”

He shot Dylan in his right knee next, the BB barely missing the bone. He started to moan and writhe around on the ground too, just as Maximus broke the second BB gun. Rachel was just recovering from her injury and holding the bat, gritting her teeth and huffing. Maximus smiled and nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, y’all had me for a moment there! But it’s a little hard to kill someone as powerful as me with _toys_. Thought you kids knew that?”

“Leave…j-just…just leave us alone,” Rachel pleaded.

“Mmmmmmmmmm—no. This is a lot more entertaining! I’m sure Markie-boy—who’s probably blind in one eye now—would agree! Ain’t that right, Mark?”

“Fuck…fuck you,” Mark whimpered.

Maximus sighed and wagged his tail. “I applaud your sprit though! You all get an A for effort! But _trying_ won’t work here. So here’s what I’m gonna do! I’m gonna come back later, maybe kills another two dozen people in the meantime, and then we can ‘battle’ again in a few hours! And I’m sure you’ll lose again. But who knows. Maybe I’ll get so bored that I’ll just kill you all outta frustration!”

Maximus chuckled as he turned his back on the group and started walking away. “You should get those wounds looked at! I doubt you all wanna face me again with a handicap!”

As much as Rachel wanted to chase after the beast and clock him in the head again, he was right. Boog, Dylan, and Mark were all wounded and needed medical attention. So she lowered her bat down and rushed to the preteens, dragging them all up to their feet as she helped guide them to the nearest abandoned house they could find.


	7. Let’s Vandalize

The teenager squinted before he let go of his slingshot, chuckling as the giant egg splattered against the car. He turned and looked at the other two teenagers within his gang and smiled. All three of them were dressed in black jeans, hoodies and sneakers, and they even had on cheap ski masks. One of them was blonde-haired and laughing as he spray-painted a green penis on someone’s front door. The other person, a tall teenager with a shaved head and a backpack full of supplies, was busy walking back and forth as he held a roll of toilet paper in his hand. After much consideration, the tallest teenager grunted as he threw the toilet paper. The three of them snickered as they watched the paper unroll itself above a tree. Then it landed on the roof of one of the gray houses, disappearing on the other side and landing in the backyard. The leader of the group whistled loudly and waved his cohorts over.

“All right, that’s good enough! Gotta save our ammunition!”

The blonde-haired teen nodded and twirled his can of spray-paint in his gloved hand. “Gotta love this holiday, eh?”

The trio ran down the street before anyone saw them. Although the group thought it was odd how no one seemed to be interrupting their sessions of vandalizing, they continued throwing toilet paper, eggs, and whatever messy material they could get their hands on. The blonde teen shook his can a few times and listened to how much paint was left inside the can. He frowned.

“Hey, we gotta head back to my house soon; I’m running low.”

“Heh, no worries! I’m sure one of our neighbors will ‘kindly’ let us purloin some of their spray-paint!” the leader said.

“You mean steal.”

The leader blinked. “That’s what I said, Roger.”

“I hate it when people do that shit. Why you gotta use all them big-ass fancy words to make yourself sound smarter, Toby? Just say what you mean and be done with it.”

“Because it’s amusing watching you Neanderthals fret over the jargon I spout out.”

Roger blinked. “You mean you find it funny when stupid people get confused.”

Toby huffed. “Shut up, Roger.”

“Hey, what’s this?” asked the teen with a shaved head.

Everyone looked at the queer object that the third teenager was shining his flashlight at. Toby shrugged and nudged his friend forward.

“I dunno, Grim. Maybe you should go touch it.”

“Yeah, and maybe a dog will pop out and bite my fingers off.”

The trio approached the roundish blue object that seemed to have a few tears around it. It seemed incongruous with the rest of the bush, which was mostly green and had some dying leaves clinging to the branches. All three of them leaned forward and examined the blue object further. Grim poked it.

“Kinda soft and warm.”

Roger wrinkled his nose after sniffing it. “Stinks though.”

“Yeah, well so does your gym locker,” Toby retorted. “Eh, it’s probably just some silly decoration someone put up. Let’s go.”

Just as Toby was about to turn around, he saw something fuzzy and black curl upwards, as if inviting Toby to come touch it. He scratched his head.

“Wha—where did this come from?”

Roger shrugged. “Like you said, probably some shitty decoration.”

“Could be one of those ‘Pull Me’ thingies,” Grim suggested.

Shrugging, Toby reached for the black fuzz and gripped it. Then he tugged on it once. Nothing happened. He tugged on it a second time, and the bushes rustled as the blue sphere started to move backwards. Roger glared at the object again and could see more of its features, namely a back pocket.

“Um, Tob? I think I know what—”

“Shut up; I almost got it.”

Toby grunted with effort as he yanked on the fuzz as hard as he could. And then shouted when he felt hot air blasting against his face. The trio listened to the sputtering noises that went on for a few seconds and abruptly stopped. They all realized that the noise was no different from sitting on a whoopee cushion, and Maximus revealed himself. He stood up from the bushes and hooted with laughter, turning around and laughing as he looked at the three teenagers who were plugging their noses.

“You—HAHAHAAAAAAA! You fuckin’ idiots! I can’t believe you fell for that!” the werewolf shouted.

Toby groaned as he waved the stink away and coughed. “Yeah, yeah, sure. You got your ass particles in our mouths. Whoop-de-friggin’-do.”

Maximus calmed down and took a deep breath. “Hey, don’t be mad you didn’t figure it out sooner.”

There was an awkward pause between the four individuals. Maximus wagged his tail absent-mindedly while the trio of teens kept examining Maximus and his body structure. Roger slowly walked around the beast, checking for some kind of zipper or string.

“Dude, how long did it take you to make this?”

“Few years.” Maximus leaned in front of Toby and Grim and grinned, showing off his yellow teeth. “What about you guys? How long did it take you to buy all this black clothing and ski masks?”

Toby and Grim backed away and plugged their noses again. “UGH! A lot longer than it took for you to brush your teeth this morning!” Toby said in disgust.

Maximus meekly scratched the back of his head. “Hey, dental insurance is a bitch. ‘Sides, what’s the point in hygiene anyway? You just gonna get dirty again tomorrow. May as well bask in your odors with pride!”

Roger squinted as he looked at the werewolf’s head. “What’s your name?”

“Maximus Slade.”

“Huh,” Roger muttered, still glaring at the canine. “Weird name.”

Maximus returned the gesture, leaning forward and getting in the blonde-haired teen’s face.

“Something wrong, son?”

“…You ain’t no cop, right?”

Maximus held up his paws. “All right, ya got me! I’m an undercover police officer dressed as a giant doggy on Halloween.”

Roger rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”

“Look, if I was gonna rat on you guys, I would’ve done it already.”

“Then what do you want?” asked Toby.

With a flick of his tail and a sly smirk, Maximus folded his arms. “The same thing you want: to show this world how wonderful destruction can be!”

The three delinquents started grinning after hearing Maximus’ reply. Grim started tossing a roll of toilet paper up and down in his left hand. He chucked it over at the werewolf, and he licked his lips as he walked over to a nearby house that hadn’t been sullied by the bullies’ antics. Then the beast grunted as he tossed the toilet paper high into the air, making sure that the roll got caught in the tree branches. The roll tumbled through the leaves and around the branches so many times that when it finally fell to the ground, a third of the tree was covered in the soft paper. Toby rubbed his chin as he walked over to the beast.

“Nice throw! All right man, sure. Feel free to join us! Just stand a couple feet away from us whenever you open your mouth!”

Nodding, Maximus wagged his tail and laughed. And so began the gang’s late-night adventure of debauchery. With Maximus in Toby’s gang now, it was a lot easier for them to inflict massive amounts of damage to more than just houses. The werewolf came across a shiny convertible that someone left casually parked on the side of the street. Instead of simply pelting it with eggs or covering it in toilet paper, Maximus used his brute strength to bang open the trunk. He bashed his fist against the trunk four times until he busted the lock and it popped open, revealing a pristine suitcase and some other pointless knick-knacks like jumper cables and a spare tire. But what Maximus was more curious about was the giant red canister full of gasoline. Grinning, he gripped the can and popped it open, shortly before he started pouring it all over the shiny red car. Grim walked up to the car and lit the trail of gas on the ground with his gold lighter. Then the teenagers stood back and watched as the flames whooshed forward, setting the car ablaze. All of them whooped and swore in victory as they watched the car slowly burn, the tires melting and the windows shattering from too much heat.

They ran down the street for another ten minutes. Toby and Maximus took turns smashing mailboxes with a baseball bat, with the two of them counting to see who could smash the most in a span of two minutes. After Toby won, Maximus allowed the teen to choose the next house to vandalize. He fished around in his pockets and pulled out a series of what looked like miniature hockey pucks.

“What are those?”

Toby grinned widely. “Special li’l something I found on the Internet. Looks like a disc or some kind of itty-bitty Frisbee, yeah?”

“Yeah, what of it?”

Toby snickered and took his slingshot out of Grim’s backpack. He looked into the backyard of the house and spotted a large dog house. Toby fitted the black disc into his slingshot and fired, watching as it zoomed through the air and thunked inside the house. Then Toby looked at Grim and nodded, and the tall teenager removed a detonator from his pocket. Maximus gasped.

“No way,” he said in disbelief.

Toby cackled. “Yes way! Hit it, Grim.”

Grim pushed a button on the detonator. There was a tiny beep, followed by an explosion that sounded like a series of firecrackers all exploded simultaneously. Everyone ducked as chunks of charred wood started falling from the sky. When everyone looked inside the backyard, the dog house had been obliterated, and there was a small black splotch in the grass. Toby and his gang whooped and held up his arms while Maximus started to laugh uncontrollably. The home seemed to be abandoned at the moment, so no one came out of the house wondering why there was wood spread across the backyard. The werewolf was laughing so hard that he fell onto his back, his entire body shaking as the furry beast chortled. Once the werewolf recovered and got back to his footpaws, he sniffled and grinned widely at the three teenagers.

“That was beautiful! Don’t think I remember teens doin’ that when I was your age!”

Roger raised an eyebrow. “Really? You kinda look like you’re the same age as us.”

Maximus inhaled sharply. “ _Technically_ , I’m over thirty. I just got the mindset of a sixteen-year-old.” The werewolf exhaled. “You got any other trinkets we can play with?”

Roger turned around and showed off his backpack. Toby unzipped it and pulled out a few more cans of spray-paint before he tossed one over to Maximus. Once the werewolf had his paint, he and the other three humans ran around the street whooping and looking for another place to vandalize. Roger and Grim took turns tagging a fence at the same time, attempting to draw what appeared to be a naked woman with large breasts. Maximus and Toby both looked at another expensive car and figured it would only be fair to redesign its pale, gray color. So Maximus shook his can and started spraying brown paint against the windshield and the hood, making it look as though someone painted giant piles of fecal matter against the glass. Toby painted an orange penis on the trunk before taking his can of yellow paint and drawing a stream at the end of the penis. Maximus looked at the drawing and smirked.

“Hehe, you ain’t gonna use your _own_ spray-paint?”

Toby blinked. “Whatcha mean?”

Maximus grinned. “You know what I mean.”

Toby stared at the werewolf as he pointed down at his crotch. And then Toby rubbed his nose and shrugged before he climbed onto the car’s trunk. Toby zipped down his pants and started sighing when he pulled his penis out of his black jeans. All Maximus could do was smile when he saw the steady stream of urine gush from Toby’s penis and splash over the rear windshield.

“Yeah…good boy,” said Maximus, patting Toby on the back.

Another half-hour of their shenanigans passed. Everytime they found a house that seemed vacant, the group of four would defile the building in either toilet paper, spray-paint, or eggs. After the group had finished moving past the houses on the cul-de-sac that were vacant, Maximus spotted a house that still had all of the lights on. The werewolf wagged his tail as he looked at the brightly-lit building with a large, newly-purchased SUV in the driveway. Maximus approached the sleek dark blue vehicle and lifted a paw, pressing his dirty fingers against the windows. Toby looked at the werewolf and waved at him, signaling him to move away.

“Hey, let’s move it! Owner’s home; guy might have a weapon on him.”

Defiant, Maximus shook his head. “Uh-uh. Too valuable. It’s a giant piñata full of gold! We ain’t runnin’ away from this.”

“Dude, don’t get greedy. You’re a werewolf, not some pig!”

Maximus winked at Toby. “Why thank you! I’m most certainly _not_ some dirty cop!”

Toby huffed as Maximus ran his claws against the owner’s precious vehicle, scratching the paint off two of the doors. Then he snarled as he reached up and bashed his fist against the door on the passenger’s side, leaving a huge dent in it. He walked over to the other side of the vehicle and proceeded to punch the window on the driver’s side, cracking it so much that pieces of glass began to fall from the window. Then Maximus looked over at the front door and saw a glorious, grinning jack-o-lantern that had been carefully crafted by the owner. Rubbing his crotch, Maximus walked over to the carved pumpkin and fidgeted with his shorts.

“Yo, buddy! C’mon, let’s go before the owner sees us!” Grim demanded.

“Yeah, screw this house. We got other places to hit!” Roger added.

“All right, all right, I’m coming! Just, uh…I gotta take a piss first.”

Maximus stared at the jack-o-lantern as he lowered his trousers far enough to pull out his penis. Then he exhaled as he started to urinate, making sure that his urine splashed all over the pumpkin.

“Fuck yeah,” he moaned.

Maximus chuckled uncontrollably as he kept peeing on the jack-o-lantern, listening to the fire hiss as he extinguished it with his urine. The flame quickly died, and the rank smell of his burning urine floated up to his nostrils. Toby snarled as he walked over to the house and tugged on Maximus’ arm. 

“That’s enough man! I peed on a car no one was in; you’re pissin’ right in front of someone’s door!”

The werewolf turned and winked at Toby again. “I know what I’m doing.”

Before either of them could say something else, they all saw a huge shadow appear behind the glass door’s tinted windows. Someone shouted from inside, and then the owner opened up the door. 

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

Maximus looked at the peach-skinned owner wearing a pair of expensive silk pajamas. He smiled cheekily at the man, showing off all of his slobbery yellow teeth. 

“Had to take a piss! Couldn’t find a toilet, so I—shit. Awwwwww, it’s going everywhere!”

The pumpkin was soggy and some of its insides were dribbling out all over the doorstep. A yellow puddle had formed in front of the door and was spreading around all over Maximus’ footpaws. 

“Stop peeing on my fucking pumpkin!”

Maximus shrugged. “Mkay then.”

Surprisingly, Maximus did as he was told and stopped peeing on the jack-o-lantern. Instead, he aimed for the owner’s expensive silk slippers, making sure that his urine splattered all over the owner’s feet. The owner shouted after the urine got on his slippers, and Maximus sighed as he finished up and stuffed his penis back into his shorts. Furious, the owner walked outside and removed a Taser from his pockets. Maximus grabbed the man’s arm and gripped his wrist so tightly that he nearly broke some of the bones in his hand. The man dropped the electric device, and Maximus quickly sidled his way around the owner until he was standing behind him. Then he lifted his arm and wrapped it around the owner’s throat, putting the man in a headlock. Roger looked at Toby and chuckled.

“Dude, this new werewolf guy is badass.”

Toby looked over his shoulder to make sure no one else was on the street. “Okay, that’s-that’s enough, dude. That’s enough now!”

Maximus kept choking the man as he protested and let out multiple grunts, desperate to get away from the sadistic beast. After struggling for nearly thirty seconds, Maximus heard a few subtle pops and snaps. And then the man dropped his arms and stopped moving. Maximus exhaled as he let go of the dead man and slowly let his body fall to the floor. The three teenagers rushed into the doorway frowning.

“Um.”

“Dude?”

“Did you just—”

“Nah, nah, he’s good! Just knocked him out.”

Toby looked down at the man and lightly tapped him with his foot. “Um…you-you sure? He’s not moving even a little—”

“Heeeeeey, hey now! This asshole ain’t important! What’s important is that we got this whole fancy-shmancy house to ourselves!” 

The humans were feeling a bit unnerved by how nonchalant Maximus was over subduing the owner of the house. Already he was in the kitchen looking through his belongings and checking to see what all was in the fridge. Toby started to feel reluctant around the werewolf, up until he came back holding a six-pack of beer.

“Don’t suppose you’re too young to drink, are ya?”

And just like that, Toby’s apprehension went away.

_______________________________

The group spent their time inside the giant house drinking beer and eating all the expensive food the owner had in his fridge. By the time all of them had stuffed bellies and were partially inebriated, they relaxed in the owner’s bedroom and chatted amongst each other, no longer wearing their ski masks since they knew no one would see them. Maximus looked around in the owner’s dresser and found a few pills that he kept for himself. He walked back over to the gang and exhaled as he threw himself on the king-sized bed, snickering as he rubbed his back against it and soiled it with his fur. Then the giant wolf grunted and passed gas, filling everyone’s ears with a muffled sputtering noise. It wasn’t until Toby and the others noticed the stench of sulfur that they realized what Maximus had done.

“Gah, stop doing that! You stink enough as it is!” Roger complained.

Maximus got on all fours, his rear end pointed at the teenagers. “Make me,” he said in a mocking tone.

Everyone groaned again when they heard more sputtering noises from Maximus’ behind. The room quickly stank of digested meat and rotten eggs, and Maximus made sure he wafted the stench over in their direction. Toby, trying to make the best of the situation, snatched Grim’s lighter from him and flicked the wheel. As soon as the flame shot out of the lighter, Toby held it behind Maximus’ rump and lifted his tail for him. For nearly two minutes straight, Maximus kept grunting and forcing out all the gas in his bowels, trying his best to create a huge flame with his flatulence. Grim and Roger were laughing so hard that beer spilled from their mouths. Toby had to pinch his nose shut with one hand and held the lighter with the other, disappointed that the werewolf could only create tiny flames that only lasted for half a second before dissipating. He moved the lighter away while Maximus collapsed onto his stomach.

“Shit man! Smells like you shat out a dead animal!”

Maximus breathed heavily. “Trust me; I was damn near close to doing that.”

Grim and Roger both stood up and walked backwards towards the door. The tall teenager opened it up while Roger grabbed his near-empty beer bottle and stumbled.

“Whew…all right, we’re gonna head back downstairs and look for more shit. All them farts are making us woozy,” said Roger.

Toby looked at the bottle and scoffed. “Yeah, sure, blame the farts.”

Toby leaped backwards onto the mattress and lied down beside Maximus. The werewolf opened his mouth wide, yawning and letting his tongue hang out, before he exhaled and rolled over onto his back. He flicked his eyes over at Toby and elbowed him.

“Ya havin’ fun yet?”

Toby smirked. “You kidding? I love Halloween! Only night where it’s legal to pelt someone’s house with eggs and buy TP without anyone thinking you got some bowel disorder. I always have fun on Halloween.”

“Yeah, me too kid. Kinda missed this, actually. The last two Halloweens, I couldn’t go. I had…issues I needed to sort out.”

“Define issues.”

Maximus grunted and sat up. “Well…I don’t have a home. Don’t live with nobody either.”

“What? So you’re a drifter?”

“Something like that. I like the quietness, and I prefer being alone, if I’m being honest. But there’s…” Maximus shook his head. “There’s no one around to wrestle with. No one to kiss or fuck, no one to marvel at your farts when you blast one that’s over twenty seconds long. Shit like that.”

“So, what? You’re one of those people who doesn’t like playing video games by himself?”

“More or less.”

“But you just said you like being alone.”

Maximus grumbled. “Yeah. It’s weird. Even when I was a kid, I didn’t…I didn’t like being around other kids. Not unless they were having lots of fun, and I wasn’t. If I saw someone being boring, I’d just stay to myself and play with my own toys.”

“And if you saw someone with a toy you wanted, you’d suddenly act like you were their best buddy.”

Maximus nodded and clicked his tongue. “That sounds about right, yeah.”

Before the two could continue with their conversation, Roger and Grim returned to the bedroom, looking more intoxicated than they were before they went downstairs. Grim could barely stand, and Roger had to lean against the dresser so he could steady his feet.

“Hey…no more beer. Just some Perrier shit…fuck, this stuff is strong,” Roger murmured.

His spirits lifting, Maximus thumped his tail on the bed and faced all the teenagers. “Hey, I got an idea. How’s about we all play Dare?”

“You means-HIC!-you mean Truth or Dare?”

Maximus shook his head. “Nope! Just Dare. We all dare each other to do something, and you do it!”

Grim grabbed his head and exhaled as he slouched against the bed. “I’m…I’m actually not feeling well. Sssshould prolly sleep.”

“It’ll only be a few minutes. C’mon! I’m sure you boys played this all the time. I’ll even let you guys go first.”

Roger exhaled. “Fine…hey, Grim. I dare ya to kiss Mass-en-mus in the mouf.”

Grim raised an eyebrow. “ _Hell_ no. Guy’s breath smells like sewer waste! I’m better off kissing a skunk’s ass!”

Maximus grinned and showed off his yellow, saliva-drenched teeth with bits of flesh stuck in-between them. “It’ll only be for a second.”

“I am not kissin’ that!”

Maximus crawled on the bed towards Grim. “Yeah, you are.”

“Don’t—MMPH!”

Maximus reached forward and grabbed Grim as he leaned against the foot of the bed. Then he opened his mouth and pressed his slobbery maw against Grim’s lips. He mumbled and smooched noisily, salivating so much that Roger and Toby could see his spit dribbling between their mouths. Toby and Roger broke out into a fit of laughter while Grim desperately tried to shove the furry animal away. By the time Maximus took his mouth away, Grim’s lips and jaw were covered in his spit, and he was on the verge of vomiting. The tall teenager tripped backwards and sat down on the floor hard, banging his head against the dresser. Grim wiped his mouth of all the vile slobber and food chunks that were all over his lips before he huffed and glared at Roger.

“Okay…you think it’s funny, huh?”

Roger had to cough and inhale as he paused between his laughs and tried to balance himself against the dresser behind him. “It’s-it’s pretty damn funny to me!”

“I dare you to smell his feet then! For thirty seconds!”

Roger stopped laughing and glared at Grim’s smug smile. Surprisingly, the blonde-haired teen merely shrugged and walked up to Maximus as he sat on the bed curling his toes.

“All right, that ain’t no problem for me.”

Bending over, Roger flared his nostrils and sniffed Maximus’ footpaws. And then he recoiled. 

“Fu—WHAT?! I’m not smellin’ that for thirty seconds!”

“Thirty seconds,” Maximus growled.

“No!”

“Thirty seconds,” Toby restated.

“NO!”

Maximus curled his toes again. “Wanna lick ‘em clean then?”

Roger stammered and waved his hands. “Fuck that.”

Sighing, Maximus leaned backwards and put his paws behind his head, smiling with smug satisfaction. “Then you best get to sniffin’!”

After running a hand through his hair, Roger exhaled and looked at Maximus’ giant fuzzy black footpaws again. Seeing no other option, the teenager bent down again and stuffed his face against the massive soles. Roger gagged and snorted as he tried to breathe in the funky smell of corn chips, dirt and cheese. Maximus leaned forward and held Roger’s head still so he couldn’t move, whilst Toby looked at a timer on his phone and kept track of how long the teenager was breathing in the foot funk. The more he sniffed, the weaker Roger became. Maximus flicked his eyes over at Grim and Roger’s bottles of beer before looking down at Grim, who was already nodding off and too tired to stand. Even Roger was growing weak, either from lack of clean oxygen or from all the alcohol. When the time was up and Maximus let go, Roger moved backwards and inhaled clean air, only to stutter and collapse onto his back, moaning.

“Damn, Maximus!” Toby shouted. “Didn’t know your feet stink so much!”

“Right,” he said, before turning to Toby. “It’s my turn now!”

Toby rolled his eyes and rubbed his nose. “What? You gonna make me sniff your farts now? Or maybe you want me to tickle your balls or give you a blowjob.”

“As lovely as that second option sounds, I got a better idea.”

“Sure. I’ll bite.”

There was a long pause. Maximus looked at Grim and Roger again as they lied on the floor. Neither of them was making much noise, and they were both drooling from their mouths uncontrollably. He turned and faced Toby once more before growling.

“I dare you to kill Grim and Roger.”

Toby stared at Maximus and blinked. And then he stifled laughter and shook his head. “You serious? They’re dead already after all that beer they drank!”

“Actually,” said Maximus, pulling a pack of pills from his back pocket, “I slid this in their bottles.”

Toby looked at the package and frowned. “Wha-what the hell are those? …Are those date-rape pills?”

“Yep! Guess I did the world a favor killing the owner of this house. So fascinating, isn’t it? Not knowing what you’ll find in someone’s house, all the dirty skeletons littered in their closets…”

Suddenly everything changed. Toby wasn’t in a room with a giant furry friend. He was in the same room as a predator. And he realized too little too late that he was the prey. Maximus growled as he scooted closer to him on the bed, grinning.

“What…what the fuck is this? This—I’m not doing this. You’re not being serio—this is a joke. This is all a fuckin’ joke. No, no—it’s a prank! That’s what this is.”

Maximus exhaled. “Nope. No joke. I drugged your friends. I want you to kill them. And this? This ain’t no costume. This is real.”

Toby jumped off the bed and backed away with his hands raised. He laughed uncontrollably as he walked backwards, his back bumping into the wall.

“Uh-uh. Nah. Bullshit. Now, if you were a giant polar bear trying to pass off as a dude in a costume, sure. I’d believe that. Granted a talking polar bear who walks on his hind legs is dumb as fuck, but that’s more believable than a talking werewolf. Werewolves don’t exist. Polar bears do. You’re just a mythical legend, like ghosts and vampires and wendigoes and shit.”

Hopping off the bed, Maximus grunted and walked over to Toby, towering over the red-haired teenager. “Look at me. Touch me. Smell me. Do I _seem_ fake? This is my real body. My real arms and legs.” 

Maximus opened his mouth wide, causing Toby to turn away and hold his nose. The werewolf drooled and exhaled as he moved his tongue around. “Ya see that? Did you see any gears, any wires in there? I _know_ you smelled that. Nothing ‘fake’ would have a stink that genuine. I’m not some costume or some CGI entity come to life or some animatronic with a dead person inside of it. I’m a full-grown, real-life, one hundred percent flesh and blood werewolf.”

It hit him now. Maximus wasn’t lying. Everything he said was true. Toby was stuck in a room with a hostile werewolf who just dared him to kill his friends. The teenager whimpered as he turned his head and looked at the open door. Maximus must’ve read his thoughts; he sprinted for the door and slammed it shut, locking it. Then he turned and walked up to Toby again, wagging his index finger.

“Nah, you’re not running from this. I dared you to kill your friends. You’re gonna fuckin’ do it.”

“No,” he whimpered, shaking his head. “Even if you are this…this giant beast, I’m not doin’ what you said. How d’you expect me to kill my friends?!”

“Simple,” said Maximus, as he opened up the dresser and pulled out a snub-nosed revolver. “Use this.”

“I don’t mean literally! I can’t just…I’ve known ‘em since middle school. How can…I’m not—”

“There’s no such thing as compassion with you humans. It’s all a hoax. It’s all fake bullshit. We tell ourselves that we need love, we need interaction with others…but really, we just want to be entertained.”

Toby sniffled and rubbed his nose. “Is that what this shit is? You were some outcast as a human and now-now you’re exacting revenge on everyone else? What kind of angsty shitty excuse is that?!” 

“Oh, I had friends. I made lots of friends. It’s just that I always lost interest in them.” Maximus popped the cylinder out of the revolver and spun it around repeatedly. “My first friend was one of those nice kids. He saw me eating lunch all by my lonesome, and he came up to me and we started talking. Well, he talked; I just listened. But after a while, I found his conversations thrilling. He was into movies and art, shit like that. But he…he never knew how to change the subject. After knowing him for three months and talking about nothing _but_ art and movies, he bored me. A lot. Me? I found entertainment in killing rabbits, and squirrels, and rats…and my neighbors’ cats.”

Toby whimpered when Maximus stepped up to him and brandished the gun in front of his face. “One day, we went hiking. We started playing Truth or Dare, just like tonight. I asked him if he killed any animals before. He said no. I asked him if he _wanted_ to kill any animals. He said no. Then I asked him if he wanted to kill any humans. Obviously, he said no.”

Toby gagged when Maximus slowly raised a paw and gripped his throat. He squeezed lightly, but not hard enough to break any bones.

“So I just pounced on him. And then I grabbed his throat, just like this. And I squeezed. I, uh…heh. I realized that, humans are just _really_ large cats. When you start choking them, they can’t fathom what’s happening. They yowl. They fight back. But ultimately, after you squeeze long enough, they just stop moving. And you just feel this…this wave of ecstasy. It’s the most wondrous feeling in the world.”

Once Maximus let Toby go, the teenager grabbed his throat and coughed violently, his back still pressed against the wall as he tried to breathe in all the fresh air he could. Maximus crouched down as he smiled at him and gripped the handle of the revolver tightly.

“You see, I learned something important that day. If a friend isn’t entertaining you, he or she is not your friend. And my ‘friend’ got very boring very fast. So I disposed of him.”

“Wha…what the fuck is wrong with you? That’s not what a friend is!”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No, it’s not!”

Maximus shrugged. “Yeah, it is. See, friends—they’re like toys really—ah! Video games! We can all relate to that! They’re video games. You play them for a while, you’re havin’ fun, but then you reach the end. You beat all the levels. You unlocked everything. And then you see no more use for it. So you leave it alone and let it collect dust. Or you sell it for some cash. Or you just do what I do and dispose of them.”

Toby sobbed. “That is _not_ how you’re supposed to treat people, especially someone you call a friend!”

“Pfft! Says who? Society? Fuck that. Everyone has different interpretations of words. Y’know, tomato, to-mah-to. Anyway,”

Toby gasped and shouted when Maximus roughly grabbed him and shoved him towards the two nearly unconscious teenagers. Toby tried to fight back against the shaggy beast, but Maximus easily overpowered him and promptly slid the snub-nose into his right hand. He grinned as he held Toby’s arm and slowly lifted it, pointing the weapon at Roger’s skull.

“See? It’s easy, Toby! Just squeeze that lil—you’ve played video games. You know how this goes. So squeeze.”

“…No.”

“Squeeze it, Toby.”

“Fuck you.”

Maximus huffed and removed the gun. He giggled as he walked over to Roger and pointed the gun at his forehead. Roger mumbled gently as he tried to move while Maximus turned and looked at Toby.

“Here. I’ll make it easy for you!”

Toby shouted as he was startled both by the ear-piercing gunshot and the blood that erupted from Roger’s skull. He backed away and started sobbing and breathing heavily, his entire body shaking as the crimson-colored fluids was drained from Roger’s head. Maximus wagged his tail as he walked over to Toby and shoved the gun into his hand again.

“There! Now you only gotta kill one of them!”

“I CAN’T!”

“It’s easy Tob—”

Maximus leaped forward and grabbed Toby’s wrist as he aimed the gun at him instead. He tightened his grip and snarled at the teenager.

“I know it’s not silver, but I’m sick and tired of getting shot! You ever took a shotgun blast to your fuckin’ face?! It’s like bashing a bowling ball against your skull!”

“Why are you doing this?! Why can’t—”

“Stop. Stop talking. I’m _also_ sick and tired of people looking for some shitty motive! I told you to do something, so you fucking do it!”

“You can bark at me all you want…I’m not-I’m not doing this!” Toby cried.

This is tiring, Maximus told himself. He snarled again and took the gun away from Toby before he walked over to Grim and pointed the gun at his scalp. Grim had enough strength left in him to lift his head, moments before Maximus shot him too, causing blood and bone fragments to splatter against the dresser. Toby whimpered and crouched down, grasping his head and moaning.

“It’s not real…it’s not…it’s not,” he moaned.

“These fucking humans—you’re all broken records! Why can’t any of you people comprehend what I’m trying to do?! It’s just…”

The werewolf tossed the gun on the bed before he walked behind Toby. Before Toby could snap out of his shock, Maximus growled and opened his mouth wide. Then Toby shrieked as he felt intense pain in his left shoulder along with Maximus’ slobber running down his clothing. When the werewolf took his maw away, Toby winced and whimpered, his shoulder bleeding profusely as Maximus wiped his mouth clean.

“There! Shoulda done that in the first place…”

“N-no…you bit me! Fuck, you just bit me!”

Maximus nodded and folded his arms with a smirk on his face. “That’s right! Now you’re gonna be a werewolf like me! Just give it about twelve hours or so and you’ll be able to shift like me. So…this is what’s gonna happen: you’re gonna shift. We’re gonna leave this neighborhood together, and then I’ll ‘train’ you. I’ll show you the joys of being a lycan. It’ll be just like what we did tonight! Except I’ll teach you how to kill properly. And I’ll show you how to stay in your lycan form. When you stay in wolf form for over a year or two, it becomes permanent! You’ll never turn back into a human again! It’s real simple actually; I’m sure—”

“I’M NOT GOING WITH YOU!”

Maximus shrugged. “Kay. You’re fucked either way. I bit you, and there’s no cure as far as I’m concerned. So you can either come with me, or you can stay here, be an outcast, get captured by scientists, yadda yadda yadda. That what you want?”

“There has to be a way to reverse this—there’s gotta be some-some vaccine…” Toby stammered as he stood up and frantically looked around the room, pulling open random drawers as he tried to find some kind of pills.

“Toby. It’s done. You’re gonna be a werewolf. You’re gonna come with me. And we’re gonna have _fun_.”

Toby stared at the furry beast. And then he looked at the revolver on the bed. Before Maximus could get to it, Toby reached for the gun and snatched it away, then pointed it at his head. He backed away from Maximus as tears started rolling down his face.

“Fix me…I-I know there’s a way—”

“There isn’t.”

“FIX ME! Do it! Do it or I’ll kill myself!”

“Hmm. So the angsty teen will kill himself if he doesn’t get what he wants. Mkay.”

“I will! I won’t become like you! I _can’t_!”

Shrugging, Maximus remained emotionless as he stared at the sobbing teenager. “Then pull the trigger.”

Toby’s hands shook as he tried to squeeze the trigger. He was hoping that Maximus would eventually cave in and would reveal that there was some kind of antidote or drug he could take that would get the lycanthrope out of his blood.

“I…what about all that shit you said earlier? About friends? About—”

“I know what I said. But you’re boring me now, so if you really wanna press the trigger, then do it.”

Toby exhaled and started to move his finger from the trigger. “…Please…help me.”

Maximus finally lowered his arms and walked over to the skittish teenager. He reached over and grabbed Toby’s wrist, and then jerked the gun up to his chin.

“Here. Let me show you how you do it.”

Maximus squeezed the trigger and fired. He shut his eyes as Toby’s blood splattered onto his face. He listened to his body thump on the floor before he wiped his eyes and sighed heavily. The lycan blinked as he put the gun in his back pocket and looked at the trio of teenagers all lying dead on the floor. He mumbled.

“Shame. Ah well.”

Overwhelmed with boredom again, Maximus walked out of the bedroom and headed downstairs, where he passed by the owner’s corpse. Before he walked outside the house, he smelled something metallic and felt his spine tingling. Maximus blinked as he wandered around the house for a moment, sniffing repeatedly as he tried to find the source. He walked into the kitchen and opened up the cabinets and found a set of dishware that probably cost most than an average tuxedo would, shortly before he pulled open one of the drawers. Maximus sniffed at the utensils neatly placed in the drawer and scowled.

“You gotta be shitting me.”

Maximus reached down and grabbed a spoon. And then he hollered in pain as the spoon burned his paw, almost like he had held his paw over an open flame. The spoon clattered to the floor, and Maximus looked at his paw and saw that it was slightly red.

“FUCK!”

The werewolf snarled as he quickly walked to the front door and stepped outside. He ran away from the house panting, hoping that was the only owner in the neighborhood with that type of silverware.


	8. Let’s Fight Back

It was off-putting now, seeing everything with only half his vision. Mark blinked, only to wince when he felt the pain in his left eye. Mark reached up and was going to rub his eye socket until Rachel grabbed his wrist and shoved it down. The preteen took a few breaths as he sat on the table and blinked using only his right eye. Then he looked to his right and remembered that the owner of this house was dead as well. He didn’t feel right stowing away in the building now that the owner was dead, but none of them had time to race to the hospital, not with all of them injured. Mark grumbled as he looked back up at Rachel and saw her looking through the medical kit.

“Just keep the patch on until we reach the hospital, okay?”

With a soft exhale, Mark nodded and said, “Okay.”

Dylan looked at Mark and snickered. Then the preteen walked over to Mark and twirled a small, black accessory around in his hand. “Hey, look at it this way!”

Dylan giggled as he reached over and placed the accessory around Mark’s head. Mark turned and glared at Dylan, just as the preteen reached up and grasped the bit of fabric over his left eye.

“Is-is this an _actual_ eyepatch?”

“Yup! Now your costume looks even more authentic!”

Mark and Rachel continued to glare at Dylan. Dylan realized what was about to happen and he frowned. So he reached over towards the bookcase and promptly picked up two items, holding them near his head.

“Book or binder?”

“Binder,” said Mark.

“…But it’s heavy,” Dylan whined.

“Binder,” repeated Mark.

Dylan huffed and tossed the book on the floor. Then he took the binder and smacked himself in the face with it so hard that he shouted and fell down with a hard thud. Mark looked at Dylan and smiled to himself while Rachel sighed heavily and limped over to Boog.

“I just patched you up. Try not to hurt yourselves even further, especially with everything goin’ on.”

Mark nodded slowly before looking over at Boog. He was wincing as well as he reached up and groped the laceration on the side of his head. Rachel sifted through the med kit again and pulled out some bandages before dumping peroxide on the bits of cloth. Boog grumbled as he looked at Rachel and sniffed.

“Um, shouldn’t you stitch this up?”

Shaking her head, Rachel walked over to Boog and pressed the soaked cloth against Boog’s wound. “I don’t know how to sew, let alone make stitches. Would you prefer I wrap bandages around your skull or if I accidentally poke your brain?”

“Bandages.”

Boog stayed still and grunted a couple of times as Rachel wiped the soaked cloth against Boog’s head before getting some gauze and wrapping it around the preteen’s head. While all that was happening, Mark grunted and slid off the table, glancing around the former owner’s living room. He wandered around the floor for a moment, exhaling and listening to his black boots clomp against the tiles, before he grabbed Dylan’s cell phone off the bookcase and started using the Internet. Boog flicked his eyes over at Mark and hopped off the desk he was sitting on after he thanked Rachel for patching him up.

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Looking up ways to kill a werewolf again,” he said, dragging his fingers against the hi-tech phone. “Huh. Seems like we don’t need silver after all. We just gotta sever his brain from his body or destroy his heart.”

“How are we gonna destroy his heart? He broke our only knife.”

“And I tried stabbing him before. That won’t work.”

“Okay, so we find some silver and we stab him in the heart. That’s not all that hard.”

Mark glared at Boog. “You’ve any idea how expensive silver is? We’re not gonna find it wily-nily and we can’t spend hundreds of dollars buying some fancy-ass utensils online.”

Boog exhaled. “Well…so we figure out a way to cut off his head! That shouldn’t be difficult.”

Mark exhaled. “Yes, Boog. I’m sure we’ll find a machete just lying around here. Perhaps even a katana—”

“Stop talking down to me, _puto_! I’m just giving you the only viable options we have! It’s not my fault we’re stuck in this shitty situation so don’t take it out on me!”

Mark lowered the phone and huffed. “You’re right, I was…it’s just frustrating.”

“What, having your Halloween night interrupted by some smelly dog-beast who wants to kill you? Yeah, that sounds frustrating.”

Mark flicked his eyes over at Rachel and Dylan. Dylan had recovered from his fall and was over getting treated for his leg wound. He noticed that Rachel was playfully toying with the preteen’s body, poking at him and pretending to imitate Maximus. He stared at them for a moment before he looked down at the floor and leaned against the nightstand. Noticing his sudden quietness, Boog leaned against the couch and rubbed his hands together.

“Are you okay?”

“I have an eyepatch on and you’re asking if I’m okay.”

“I mean beside this whole werewolf thing…I saw you half-glare at us when Dylan made that comment earlier.”

Mark paused for a long moment again before he folded his arms. He shrugged. “Dylan has a sister who cares about him. You have parents who at least pamper you enough so you don’t gotta worry about being homeless. I got drug dealers.”

“Dude, just move out or something. Run away.” Boog stammered. “I dunno—can’t you get adopted again or something?”

“That would mean I’d have to go to foster care. Again. I’m not doin’ that. My parents are assholes, but at least they never tried to do ‘things’ to me. Besides, if I go back in foster care, I won’t be with you guys anymore.”

“I think living in a proper house with good parents is better than hanging out with a couple preteens.”

Mark set Dylan’s phone back on the bookcase and moved away from the nightstand. He started to pace around the floor slowly. “It’s just…the one time— _the one time_ —I sneak out of my house to do something fun with you guys, I lose an eye. The one night I choose to be selfish, to just have _some_ kind of fun, to feel like some blissfully optimistic kid again, I find out that werewolves _do_ exist. And I just so happen to run into one who’s a giant ass.”

Mark huffed and kicked the nightstand in frustration. “You wanna know the worst part?”

“What?”

“This is just one night. When we kill this werewolf, tomorrow will be November. And then I get to go back home. And everything turns to shit again—only now, I have to deal with all this shit with one eye.”

Boog noticed how down Mark looked and walked over to the preteen. He smiled and gently nudged Mark in his left shoulder. “We’ll figure it out man. I know it seems like it’s bad now, but…um…”

“But what?”

Boog stammered. “Think about it! Things could be a lot worse.”

“How?”

“Easy. Maximus could be ass-raping us. Or cutting off our private parts. Or forcing us to watch _The Emoji Movie_. Or ass-raping us while he cuts off our private parts as _The Emoji Movie_ plays in the background!”

Despite all the stress he was going through, Mark couldn’t help but laugh after listening to Boog. “Okay, okay, all right. It could be worse.”

“HEY GUYS! I just thought of something!” Dylan shouted.

Boog and Mark approached Rachel and Dylan. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Who’s the richest person in this neighborhood?” asked Dylan.

“Uhhhh, there’s that publisher dude who lives up on Fenway Avenue,” responded Mark.

Rachel grumbled. “Who, Dawson? Wasn’t he that guy who ‘allegedly’ groped all those women back in California?”

“Yeah, but nevertheless, dude’s got a crap-load of money! And he’s got a flashy SUV. And he’s got a giant house,” Dylan added.

“You think he’s got a bunch of silverware too?” Mark asked.

“Probably. We go to his house, find some silver knives, and we go take on Maximus again. Simple, right?”

Rachel rubbed her nose. “Well, yeah, but our last idea didn’t go so well. You almost lost an eye, Mark, and Boog nearly got his brains bashed in. Perhaps we should find someone else to help—”

“Silver is his weakness,” Mark said, cutting her off. “We find silver, this all ends. Like Dylan said, simple.”

Rachel exhaled and folded her arms. “All in favor—”

Everyone raised their hands again, with Boog making sure he raised his bare hand along with his costume’s paw. Rachel grumbled.

“Boog, you need to stop doing that.”

“Nooooo,” he said in a taunting manner.

_______________________________

By the time the group arrived at Dawson’s house, they noticed that the streets were quieter than they were before. They didn’t even seem to notice the crickets and other insects that were chirping and making noise around them. All the trick-or-treaters were either dead or locked inside their homes with their guardians, waiting for the threat to be over. The group didn’t even see cars slowly passing down the road. It was almost like someone had blocked them off from the rest of the open world. Mark turned around after hearing something clattering on the ground and looked around the street. He didn’t see any shadows and didn’t hear eerie whispering or growling, so he assumed Maximus wasn’t stalking them.

“Huh…his front door is open,” said Rachel.

“Let me guess: he’s dead,” said Dylan flatly.

“Dylan, we can’t automatically assume that the guy’s dead just because—”

“Ewwww, someone peed all over his jack-o-lantern!” said Boog.

Rachel huffed and shook her head. She led the preteens over to Dawson’s doorsteps and peeked inside the house, where they spotted the man’s corpse. The group shut and locked the door before they began to explore the house.

“Okay, let’s split up—”

“Not happening,” Rachel said, interrupting Mark. “We stay together. Splitting up is what usually gets people killed, remember?”

“Okay, okay, fine. Still, we should search the house and make sure Maximus ain’t waiting to spring a trap on us.”

So the group started to wander around the house, searching around the living room and peeking inside the closets and the bathrooms on the first floor, hoping to seek out anything they could use as a weapon. Boog bent down and searched Dawson’s body, where he found a Taser and shouted when he accidentally activated and nearly zapped himself. Rachel extended her arm and curled her fingers, gesturing for Boog to hand over the Taser. Shortly after he did, Mark and Dylan entered the kitchen and searched the cabinets, frowning when all they saw were expensive China sets and wine glasses lying against large wine bottles. Dylan reached up and grabbed the wine bottle before he grunted and pressed his thumb against the bottle’s cork. Mark slapped him across his face, and Dylan set the bottle down.

“What? It’s not like this guy’s gonna need it.”

“We’re not getting drunk while a werewolf is trying to kill us.”

Boog and Rachel stepped into the kitchen and joined up with Mark and Dylan. Rachel held up the Taser and pressed the trigger on it, causing electricity to zap out of it a few times.

“Found this. Not much, but eh. It’s something right? What about you guys?”

Dylan grabbed the handle of one of the drawers and pulled it open. All he saw inside were several utensils that had beautifully-crafted designs around the handles. Dylan frowned and slammed the drawer again before folding his arms.

“Nothin’. Just a bunch of cheap-ass silverware.”

Mark blinked before he pulled open the drawer again and stared at the forks, spoons and knives. “Wait a second,” he murmured, taking out one of the forks. “This looks…this isn’t typical silverware. I think this is some kind of antique, one of those rare utensils you see people selling on those auction shows.”

“So it’s an antique. That doesn’t mean it’s silver,” Dylan pointed out.

Mark pulled open the adjacent draw and saw a set of steak knives with the same kind of design pattern. The preteen grinned. “You sure? Because there’s a large supply of steak knives right here and…heh, I’m getting a good vibe here, guys.”

The one-eyed preteen giggled as he picked up two knives and tossed one of them around in his hand. “This Dawson dude doesn’t seem like the kind of person to have knock-offs. Pretty sure it’s silver!”

Rachel shook her head. “No. This seems too simple. Maximus left the door open to the one house that is carrying the one item that can kill him? Sounds very…staged.”

Dylan scoffed. “Pfft! Don’t worry, sis! We’ll get as many of these knives as we can, lure out Maximus and take turns stabbing him in the ass!”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“Oh my god—why are you being so negative?!”

“I’m not! I’m just being realistic!”

“This plan will work,” Mark growled. “We’re gonna take all these knives and do as Dylan said! The second we draw Maximus out into the open, we’re gonna kill him! End of story!”

Rachel sighed. “Do you really think it’s smart—”

“I DON’T CARE!” Mark suddenly bellowed, breathing deeply and scowling. “I’m sick of this shit! We’ve seen too many bodies to count in just a single night! We’ve been out here trying to fight a giant furry beast that shouldn’t even exist! I’m tired, I’m cranky, I can’t see out one eye, it’s three in the morning, and worst of all, I didn’t even get to eat all of my fuckin’ candy! That was the whole point of this night!”

“Mark, calm—”

“No, Rachel, no! That was all I wanted! That’s all any of us wanted! We just wanted to get away from our shitty parents and our shitty lives and spend _one_ night—just _one fucking night_ —having fun and getting lots of junk food from strangers! We didn’t ask for any of this! We don’t _deserve_ any of this! But no…the-the one fucking night we do something like this together, this stupid motherfucker comes along and fucks it up for us! So we’re gonna fucking kill him and we’re gonna fuckin’ end this!”

Everyone stared at Mark with wide eyes as the preteen’s blood boiled and hot breath exploded out of his mouth. Boog slowly walked over to Mark and got in-between him and Rachel, looking between the two.

“Mark…we get it. You’re pissed off over having your night ruined. But let’s think reasonably here. Okay, if you wanna use these weapons to kill Maximus, fine. But we can’t rush into this; that’s how we end up getting killed.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Rachel shouted. “We can’t—”

Boog faced Rachel and held up his bear paw. “Rachel…I know hiding seems like the best option, but it’s not. We know the werewolf can break into houses; he’d just break in my house and kill us anyway. Our parents aren’t helping us, police aren’t helping us. We gotta do this ourselves. And if these knives are silver, then we can use these to our advantage. If not, well, we’re in the same position as before. It won’t hurt us to take these knives, now will it?”

Rachel took a long breath and closed her eyes. “No…it won’t.”

“Good! So let’s get these knives and get going! Sooner we get this over with, sooner we can get back to sleep.”

Mark looked at Rachel and Boog before noticing that Dylan wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. He blinked and rushed into the living room, thinking something had happened to Dylan, before he heard the preteen shouting from upstairs. Rachel, Mark, and Boog all rushed up the stairs before they spotted a shadow coming from one of the bedrooms. Once they walked inside, they noticed three teenagers all lying on the floor, having been shot in the head. At this point, the group wasn’t too squeamish when it came to seeing dead bodies, but it wasn’t until Dylan pointed out who one of the victims was that Mark had to pause.

“Wait…is that Toby?”

Dylan shrugged. “Looks like it…guess he found out what Maximus was doing and blew his brains out.”

Rachel inspected the room for a bit and noticed that there were bits of black fur all over the bed sheets. She frowned when she smelled the air, detecting Maximus’ body odor very easily. “Doubt it. I’m pretty sure that furry asshole had something to do with this.”

“Oh,” said Mark.

The four adolescents stared at the corpses in the bedroom, their bodies having cooled as they slowly began to look paler than a human being’s normal skin tone. Mark looked around the bedroom for any other signs of Maximus while Boog just kept glaring at Toby’s bite mark and the bullet wound just below his chin.

“Should we say something?” he asked.

Dylan snorted. “What for? Guy was an asshole; we’re all thinking it. Not like I’m gonna start weeping just because a bigger asshole killed him.”

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t someone’s child either,” Rachel pointed out.

“And I’m sure his seemingly kind and loving parents who allowed him to deface school property and constantly bully others at school means his parents really give a shit about disciplining their son.”

Everyone glared at Dylan as the preteen bent down and started fidgeting with Grim’s backpack. “We can worry about how we ‘feel’ and crap later. Help me get this off; Toby and his gang always carried a bunch of hazardous ‘tools’ with ‘em. Maybe they got something we can use.”

Boog exhaled and rubbed his bear head. “How the hell did we go from trick-or-treating and eating candy to stealing from corpses and getting our asses handed to us by a werewolf?”

“Life is strange like that,” Mark replied.

_______________________________

The group met outside as they exchanged the various cutlery and tools amongst each other. Rachel got on one knee as she looked inside Grim’s backpack. She found several handheld radios and handed two to each boy. She looked inside the main compartment of the backpack and groaned as she tossed out various rolls of toilet paper and some eggs the teenagers were intending to use on more houses and cars. When Rachel removed a slingshot from the pack, Dylan grabbed it and tugged on it a few times to see how far he could pull back the rubber strips. As Rachel finished emptying the backpack, she raised an eyebrow when she came across six small puck-shaped objects and what looked like a remote control.

“The f…are these bombs?”

“Tch! Toby was an asshole but he wasn’t stupid enough to blow up someone’s house,” replied Mark.

Rachel picked up one of the pucks and tossed it up and down in her hand. Then she set the puck down on the ground and instructed the boys to walk at least five yards away from it. Once they were out of the blast radius, she pointed the detonator at the tiny puck. After everyone listened to the tiny beep, the small mine-shaped explosive erupted, sending smoke and gravel into the air. Everyone shouted and nearly fell down after seeing the force of the explosive and hearing the ear-splitting bang. Then Dylan whooped with glee before he reached for the backpack.

“Ohhhhh, it’s like a remote-controlled grenade! Gimme, gimme, gimme!”

Rachel planted her hand in Dylan’s face and shoved him backwards before slinging the backpack around her arms. “Hell no. You of _all_ people should not be carrying this.”

“But they’re grenades,” Dylan whined.

“No.”

Dylan pouted as he folded his arms. Meanwhile, Mark tossed his knife up and down in his hand and smirked to himself. “We can do this. We’re right there; all we gotta do is drag him out.”

“And how do we do that?” Dylan asked.

Mark blinked before he took two steps forward. He looked down at the ground before he rubbed his forehead and grumbled.

“We gotta split up.”

“No! We already agreed we’d stick together! The second you break away—”

“That’s the point,” Mark said, interrupting Rachel. “Little kid walking by himself on a spooky night? That’s how all this shit started. That’s how it’s gonna end. I’m gonna walk down the street by myself, Maximus is gonna pop out and scare me, and that’s when I’ll hit him.”

“You’re not using yourself as bait, Mark!” Boog protested. “Can’t we just get a hunk of meat or something?”

“Pfft! Yeah, and while we’re at it, let’s make a sign reading ‘THIS IS A TRAP’ too.”

“We _just_ found all these cool-ass weapons to use against this bastard and you decide to split up now?” Dylan asked.

“He wants me and me only. He wants me to be a werewolf like him; he’s not going to kill me.”

“You’re just making assumptions! You’re an eleven-year-old boy; you don’t know anything about this maniac’s mindset!” Rachel shouted.

“I don’t. But at the same time…I mean, look at what happened when we _did_ travel together. I can’t see out one eye, Boog got a huge gash on his head, you broke a rib, and Dylan got shot in the leg. He could’ve killed us earlier if he wanted to; he could’ve killed us back in Boog’s house! He’s not killing us because we’re in a group. He’s not killing us because he doesn’t _want_ to.”

Mark shrugged and let out a small scoff. “Does it matter if I’m alone or in a group at this point?

“So let me go,” Rachel offered.

“You can’t. If you die, then no one’s gonna be able to take care of Dylan.”

“So then let me go!” Dylan offered.

“If you die, then Rachel will blame herself and she’ll lose the last bit of family she has.”

“Okay, so I’ll go. That makes the most sense, especially with my costume. Even if this guy bites me, lookit how thick my costume is! He already tried to claw me and failed. I doubt his teeth will get through all this fluff in one go.”

“And then if you die, your parents get to come home and the first thing they have to do is arrange for your funeral.”

Dylan scoffed. “So that’s it? You-you wanna do this because you’re the most expendable out of all of us? What about us, asshole? Forget about your parents; how you think we’re gonna feel if you die and we didn’t do anything to prevent it?”

Mark smiled. And at that moment it felt as though he was saying goodbye to the group. Dylan let out a sobbing cough as he clenched his left hand into a fist. Rachel walked up to Mark and snatched the knife from his hand.

“And what if I take all the knives away from you and lock you inside this house’s bathroom while we take care of this?”

“That’s _worse_. Because if you leave me alone _and_ defenseless, I _will_ die.”

Rachel huffed and handed the knife back to Mark while everyone else in the group meekly looked away from the preteen in his pirate outfit. Mark wiped his right eye before he felt a cold wind blowing against his body.

“Don’t say ‘this is the only way,’ because it’s not,” said Boog. “I-I can do this! Rachel—any one of us could do this!”

“We have radios. We’ll chat with each other as I’m out in the street. You all can follow me from some yards away, y’know, like lookouts or something. If something goes wrong, you all can come save me.”

Dylan groaned as he grabbed his head. “Fine…fine, but…what if Rachel joined you? What if it was just the two of you, and then we stay behind?”

“Then what happens if Maximus finds you two while we’re out looking for him, and then he kills you two _before_ we find him?”

“You’re not gonna say no to this, are you?”

“No,” said Mark, smirking.

Dylan folded his arms and shook his head. “Fuck you…this better fucking work, I swear.”

Mark slowly walked backwards as he ventured out into the middle of the street. “I’ll be right out in the center of the street so I’m easy to spot.”

“Mark—”

The preteen interrupted Rachel. “Just stay out of sight so Maximus doesn’t know you’re watching me. I’ll be fine…trust me.”

The three friends watched as Mark turned around and slid the silver knife into his pocket. Rachel gritted her teeth as she watched the preteen walk off on his own, while Dylan tugged on her arm.

“This is the part where you stop him, sis,” Dylan growled.

Rachel huffed. “Just…we’ll stick _very_ close to him, okay? He’ll be fine…we’ll be fine.”


	9. Let’s End This

Mark exhaled as he walked around the street, moving past some of the abandoned cars and the empty houses. He turned around and looked behind his shoulder, still disturbed at how silent it was on the street now. Mark looked at his radio and blinked as he scratched underneath his left eye. He wasn’t sure what time it was now, but Mark was struggling to stay awake. He found himself leaning against a gray pickup truck at one point, just so he could relax for a moment. He almost nodded off until Boog radioed him a few times and woke him back up. Sighing, Mark looked up into the sky at all the glittering stars and some of the trees hanging over the street. As Mark gazed at the sky, all he could do was frown and kick the dirt in frustration. Out of all the supernatural, mythical, creepy shit that could happen on Halloween, and we get fucked over by a bloodthirsty werewolf and _not_ aliens, Mark thought. Mark heard his radio crackle softly inside his pocket. He pulled it out again and grumbled.

“Yeah, I’m not dead,” Mark said with irritation.

“We know. We can still see you,” said Boog.

Flashing lights shined on the back of Mark’s head. Squinting, Mark turned around and saw a few tiny lights blinking a few yards away. Mark nodded and shined his flashlight in the same direction before lowering it.

“Any sign of him?”

Mark shook his head. “No. Some fur on the road and around some cars, but that’s it really. Haven’t come across any piss stains or piles of shit, so that’s nice.”

“Cool. Just scream like a little bitch if you’re in trouble,” Dylan teased.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you too,” Mark grumbled, before lowering his radio and stuffing it back in his pocket.

Mark walked forward for another five minutes before he came across another four-way intersection. Another chilling wind blew against his face, causing the preteen to shiver and rub his hands together. He leaned against a stop sign and pulled a knife out of his pocket, sighing as he tossed it up and down in his hand.

“Huh. It’s so late and dark outside. And I’m so young. And I’m alone and defenseless. I guess I’d better go home now before something bad happens,” said Mark flatly.

The radio crackled again and Mark answered it. “Dude. Seriously. You gotta sound convincing,” Dylan told him.

“I _am_ convincing! It’s past three in the morning and I’m out on the street alone!”

“But you can’t just _say_ that out loud! No one does that!”

“Shut up and let me do this.”

Mark lowered his radio and huffed as he resumed walking down the road again. “Oh no! My boot is untied! Perhaps I shall crouch down and tie it, while I am looking at the ground!”

Mark crouched down and could’ve sworn he heard someone smacking their forehead. As theatrical as he was being, he wasn’t lying; he did have to tie the laces on his right boot. When he finished, Mark exhaled and started strolling down the street again, whistling and humming to himself. Then Mark paused again as he waved his arms around and leaned against a car, still hoping to attract the werewolf at some point.

“OH MY GOD! THERE’S BROKEN GLASS ON THE GROUND! MAYBE—”

Mark shouted when Maximus jumped from a tree and landed on the ground with a heavy thud. But he wasn’t drooling or snarling or wagging his tail. He was pinching the bridge of his nostrils with his eyes shut.

“You can stop now,” he groaned, before lowering his paw and opening his eyes.

Mark looked at the werewolf and blinked before waving his hand. “Hey.”

Maximus raised his left eyebrow. “‘Hey’? You’re standing in front of a voracious, meat-loving, crazed beast and you say ‘hey.’”

Mark shrugged. “Yeah. This is just tiring now. The bodies hanging from the trees, the limbs scattered around the road, finding all these dead children—it’s boring now. You’ve turned into a shitty horror movie released in January.”

“ _Nothing_ is scary about me?”

“You peed into a pumpkin. What the hell is scary about that? It’s just gross.”

“But all these people—”

“Yeeeeaaaahh, all these dead people—whatever. It’s the twenty-first century. Kids are desensitized to that shit. What are you gonna do? You gonna rip me apart with your claws? You gonna eat me alive?”

Maximus huffed and folded his arms. “Actually…I was thinking about killing you with my bad breath.”

Mark raised his eyebrow. “Are you serious?”

“Oh yeah. I’m sure it’s toxic enough to render you unconscious and then I can—no, you fucking idiot!”

Maximus suddenly laughed as he looked at Mark and wagged his tail. “Ohhhhh, so much wit in you! Using sarcasm to disguise how scared you are of me! I love it. It’s so much—”

“Fun. Yes, I know. That’s clearly the only word in your vocabulary and you aren’t aware of synonyms.”

The werewolf started wandering around Mark, growling and staring at him with his shiny yellow eyes. Then he looked around the street and sniffed the air a few times.

“Where is it? You obviously put some kind of trap around here to kill me—or attempt to kill me. So just show it to me. Why else would you be out here without any of your friends?”

“Like I said, I’m just some lonely kid wandering around on Halloween.”

“Exactly. And obviously I’m the monster. And obviously you’re going to die.”

“Then kill me.”

Maximus paused. “What?”

“Kill me.”

There was another pause. Then Maximus shrugged and walked over to Mark raising his left paw. He opened his mouth for a moment, and then he looked around the street and lowered his arm. Maximus growled as he stepped back from Mark and scratched his chin. Then he grinned at the preteen and shook his head.

“No…I-I know where this is going. You _want_ me to attack you. And when I do, you’ll spring your trap. And somehow, you’ll capture me, and then while I’m captured, you’ll hurt me or find my kryptonite or you’ll do some shit and figure out a way to kill me. So you know what?”

Maximus folded his arms and smirked. “Kill me!”

Mark stammered. “Um, what?”

“ _You_ kill _me_. You’re a smart young child; I’m sure you’ll figure something out. So since I’m in such a good mood, you can go on and get the first hit in! Go on! Kill me!”

Mark shrugged again as he walked up to Maximus and stared at his body. “Okay.”

The preteen pulled out his knife. And then he stabbed Maximus in the chest. Maximus grunted but kept his grin on his face. It wasn’t until Mark twisted his knife that Maximus felt a searing pain in his chest. When Mark wrenched the knife free, Maximus grunted again and inhaled sharply. And then he looked down and shuddered. Blood was running down his midriff and was coating the blade of Mark’s knife. Maximus grabbed his chest and groped the blood coming out of the wound and shuddered again as the pain intensified. Maximus wasn’t grinning anymore, but Mark was.

“You _fucker_ ,” Maximus snarled.

Raising his radio, Mark called out to the group again. “NOW!” he shouted.

Maximus roared as he lunged for Mark. The preteen swiftly sidestepped him and stabbed him in his side, not far from his right kidney. The canine howled in pain again, nearly stumbling after getting stabbed the second time. He panted as Mark removed the blade from his flesh, swinging around as he tried to slash at Mark’s face. Mark panted as he ran away from the werewolf while Rachel, Dylan and Boog sprinted towards him. Dylan set a miniature bomb inside the slingshot and launched it at the back of Maximus’ head. Snarling, Maximus turned around, just as Dylan took out the detonator and pointed it at the tiny device on the ground.

“FUCK!”

Maximus sprinted around the ground for two seconds, before shouting when the bomb went off, sending him flying several feet away. The werewolf grunted as his body slammed into a tree, and then the beast grunted as he panted and struggled to get back to his footpaws. Mark turned around as he looked at Maximus wincing and whimpering, still bleeding from his chest and stomach. He looked over his shoulder and saw Mark running towards him, and then snarled when Mark dug his knife into his back, just to the left of the canine’s spine. Maximus jerked his left arm backwards and jammed his elbow into Mark’s nose so hard he nearly broke it. By then, Maximus was breathing heavily and limping away, swearing to himself as he tried to get away from the group.

“COME HERE!”

Boog shouted as he tossed a bat against the back of Maximus’ head, making the werewolf shout as he collapsed onto his belly and tried to flee. He reached over and snatched the bat off the ground just as Rachel and Boog got near him. Wincing, Maximus swung the bat against Boog’s head before tossing it over at Rachel. Boog grunted as he fell down while Rachel ducked and snarled when she reached Maximus and removed her knife from her pocket. She plunged the blade below Maximus’ ribs, causing the werewolf to gargle as the blade got stuck. Rachel grunted several times as she tried to move the knife, giving Maximus enough time to knee her in the groin and punch her down to the ground. He reached down and snatched a spare radio from Rachel’s trousers before he heard a faint thump and yelped. Dylan shouted as he pointed the detonator at the ground where the second mine was before he set it off. Everyone shielded their eyes as the explosion sent up dirt and grass and caused a cloud of smoke to rise into the air. Mark grunted as he sat up on the ground and rubbed his bleeding nose while Rachel rolled over onto her stomach and coughed a few times.

“Did I get him? Is he dead yet?!” Dylan asked.

Mark looked over at the other three members in the group and helped Boog and Rachel off the ground. “No, think he got away.”

Boog reached up and took his bear head off and exhaled. “See? Shield. If I wasn’t wearing this, I’d probably be in a coma now.”

Dylan couldn’t help but smirk at his sister. “Now aren’t you glad you changed your mind and let me have those bombs?”

“Absolutely not,” she said flatly.

Streaks of blood were on the ground and within the grass. Mark growled as he slowly followed the drops of blood and the paw prints Maximus left behind before he turned and shined his flashlight over at Rachel and the others.

“You guys okay?”

Rachel and Dylan nodded just as Boog slipped his fake head back on. “We’re good,” said Dylan.

“Good. C’mon, he’s wounded. We got him on the run!” said Mark before he started running after the canine.

“Mark—wait! Slow down, Mark!”

But the preteen didn’t feel like waiting any longer. He was a hunter chasing after his wounded prey, and he didn’t feel like letting it escape when he was so close to capturing it. So Mark sprinted over the drops of blood, grunting as he threw himself over someone’s fence and shoved himself through a series of bushes and thick trees. Mark heard his radio crackling a few times and heard Boog shouting at him to come back and not to wander off.

“MARK!”

Mark reached the end of a cul-de-sac and came across two cars parked around the circular dead end on the street. He turned around in a full circle as his radio crackled a few more times. The preteen lifted the radio up to his mouth and was about to speak into it when he heard a familiar voice.

“Okay…okay assholes,” Maximus wheezed. “Ya got me.”

Mark looked at the radio questionably and blinked. “How the hell did you get a spare radio?”

“That…that red-headed bitch with you. Took it—ow—took if offa her. URRGH! God, this hurts…”

Mark couldn’t help but snicker into the radio and smile to himself. Boog and the others found Mark on the street and panted as they regrouped with him. But Mark seemed unaware of their presence and wandered around the sidewalk examining more blood on the ground.

“Why you running, Maximus? Thought you were supposed to be the big bad wolf? Huh? Aren’t you supposed to be terrifying? Ain’t you supposed to be scary?”

Maximus huffed into the radio and chuckled. “You-you played me…played me good! I’ll-I’ll give you that.”

Mark was about to speak again until Rachel answered the beast on her other radio. “Listen asshole. We’re tired, we’re frustrated, and we wanna get some sleep. It’s over, got it? Just come out now and keep your dignity—what’s left of it anyway—intact. Maybe we’ll make it quick for you and I won’t cut your balls off.”

“Oh…so-so you all think I’m done, huh?”

Rachel was about to respond when she spotted a large figure poking its head out from around the corner of a van. Three shots rang out, and Rachel screamed and ducked as one bullet nearly hit her leg. One grazed Boog’s costume, and the third one lodged itself into Dylan’s right leg. The preteen screamed and fell on his back, hollering and shouting as the bullet just barely missed his femur. He looked at the blood that was running down his leg and dripping onto the ground and swore with frustration, while Mark saw Maximus aimimg the gun right at him. The revolver clicked, and Maximus snarled as he tossed it on the ground and ran away again. Mark gritted his teeth as he ran after the oversized mutt, determined to end this for good.

“DAMN IT, MARK!” Rachel screamed.

Boog screamed at Mark in Spanish while Dylan gritted his teeth and snarled as he put pressure on his wound.

“Just-just let him go! ARGH! …He’ll be fine.”

“No, he won’t, Dylan! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!” Boog protested.

Dylan chuckled. “Guys, we got silver. That werewolf _shot_ me; he had to use a gun ‘cause he knows he’s too wounded to take us on up close. He’s…he’s through. Even if Mark don’t kill him, he’s gonna bleed to death—we stabbed him four times with silver!”

Dylan laughed softly as he rested his head on the pavement and looked up at the sky.

“We’re almost there…”

_______________________________

A myriad of feelings were overwhelming the preteen now. The adrenaline was making Mark’s hands shake and his heart was pumping so fast he thought it’d explode out of his chest. The adolescent preteen looked at the ground and continued to follow the blood trail, grinning when he realized that the splotches on the ground were getting bigger with each step he took. Mark lifted his radio and leaned against a tree as he gazed around and looked at the houses.

“You’re bleeding out,” he said. “Won’t be much longer at this point.”

Silence. Mark noticed that crickets were chirping again, and he thought he heard one or two cars cruising down the street, their engines softly rumbling in the distance. He didn’t see any bodies lying about, didn’t smell the stench of death on the wind, and there was no sign of Maximus anywhere. As far as Mark was concerned, everything seemed to be returning to normal. He continued to wait, listening to the wind blowing harshly against his body. Wind chimes rang from someone’s doorstep, and Mark could vaguely see the chimes shaking as he gazed at someone’s front door. When the ringing stopped, Mark heard faint grunting over the radio and listened closely.

“Still got…still got enough…to kill ya,” Maximus replied.

“Nah, that’s bullshit. You sound like you’re ready to pass out. Hehe, how’s it feel, huh? How’s it feel being scared? How do _you_ like being hunted and stalked by someone capable of killing you without hesitation?”

Maximus chuckled. “You think I haven’t been through this before?”

“No, I don’t. You think you’re all big and bad, but where are you now? You’re hiding like a li’l bitch from an eleven-year-old kid! It’s not so fuckin’ fun now, is it? It’s not funny anymore, is it asshole?”

“Yeah, yeah…sure. I’m a li’l bitch, uh-huh. That’s exactly why I’m still alive.”

“No, I’m not being funny or sarcastic. That’s what you are! Did you think you were gonna be some infamous serial killer? Huh? Is that what this was all about? You wanted to go down in history as the next Charles Manson, the next Zodiac Killer or whatever the fuck? Did you want people to make shitty movie franchises based off you; did you wanna be the next Billy Loomis or the next Jason Voorhees? Freddy Krueger, John Kramer, Joe Carroll, Michael Myers—all these dibshits were scarier than you’ll _ever_ be! You’re nothing special, Maximus! You’re just some dirty-ass scrub of a werewolf who has to murder innocent people just to entertain himself!”

Another pause, followed by Mark panting heavily and waiting for a reply from the furry beast. He heard a deep growl over the radio, followed by a tired sigh.

“You see a dirt path between the two brick houses?”

Mark saw it and shined a flashlight on the ground, where he spotted drops of blood leading to the trail. “Yeah, what of it?”

“Walk towards it…it’ll lead you to some clearing with some rusty grills and a wheel-less van nestled around some trees. Come here.”

“Why, so I can walk into your trap?” he said, mocking him.

“I told you to kill me…so come be a man and finish the job.”

Mark scoffed. “Fine.”

It wasn’t long before Mark found the van. He followed the trail of blood very slowly, studying the area around him with his flashlight and double-checking to make sure Maximus wasn’t hiding behind any corners. When he noticed that he was in the clear, Mark headed forward and found the clearing. The path was only partially-lit, and the light in question was coming from a set of security lights that the neighbors had installed on the rear section of their homes. The owners, unsurprisingly, had been killed during Maximus’ rampage, so no one was alerted when Maximus limped his way into the van. When Mark reached the van, he saw more blood on the side door handle and chuckled. The preteen grabbed the handle and grunted as he slid the door open. Something should’ve jumped out at him—a cat, a fake blowup doll, a silly sign that had the word “BOO” spelled on it. But there were no tricks or traps. Maximus was inside, sitting down and grasping his chest wound with one paw as he kept bleeding. Maximus noticed that the canine had tried to hastily patch himself up, judging by the gauze messily wrapped around his chest. But his wounds weren’t fully sealed and he was still bleeding. Maximus looked at Mark and smiled.

“…Ya havin’ fun yet?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

Maximus coughed up some blood before he inhaled and grinned. “Good…that’s good. Y’know…I really would wish you’d reconsider…you sounded just like me a moment ago.”

“Bullshit. I’m not turning into a werewolf, and that’s final.”

Mark snarled when his radio crackled. “Hey, Mark! You find him yet?”

Mark pointed his knife at the beast as he responded into the radio. “Yeah. He didn’t even try to flee. He’s done for.”

The preteen put down his radio without listening to Rachel’s reply. Then Maximus chuckled and wiped his mouth off.

“Look at us! We’re…we’re the same, you and I. You have no friends. The ones you ‘claim’ to care for, you abandoned, just so you could kill someone. What’s that say about you?”

“What does _this_ say about _you_? You’re lonely…that-that’s it. That has to be it! Why else haven’t you killed me yet? Are you so desperate to have another werewolf join your little ‘clan’ or whatever that you’d traumatize a young adolescent person just to get what you want? You think that just because no one ‘understands’ you that it’s okay to go around killing all these innocent people?”

Maximus shuddered and whimpered, his eyes becoming a bit watery as he pondered for a moment. “I just…I just wanted to have fun,” he whimpered. “Why can’t anyone understand that? It’s just…amusement. It’s no different from-from the fucking video games everyone plays.”

“You selfish fuck. _You_ just wanted to have fun? What about me?! My parents are a bunch of drug-dealing idiots who don’t even know I snuck out the house! I just wanted some fucking candy! I just wanted to spend time with the small group of friends I _do_ have so I can forget about how shitty my life is! And you came along and fucked it all up! What about that little girl whose neck you snapped? What about all those other kids you killed?! They wanted to have fun too, and you ruined it for them! You-you wanna know the difference between you and me and everyone you killed? _Our_ definition of ‘fun’ doesn’t involve hurting or killing other people! That’s your problem, Maximus!”

Maximus shut his eyes and exhaled. When he opened them back up, Mark was surprised to see that two tears were running down his cheeks. The werewolf shook his head slowly and swallowed.

“I’m just…I don’t know…I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Maximus whined.

Mark huffed and sniffled. “No. You don’t get to play that card. I don’t give a fuck if your mentality isn’t the same as ours. You killed dozens of people. Innocent people. Own up to it!”

Maximus let out a chuckling cough before he licked his teeth and smirked at Mark. “No, Markie-boy. I had _fun_. Sure…many people were killed while I was having fun, but hey.”

“…You’re hopeless.”

“So’s humanity. Least I admit what I am.”

Mark raised his knife. Maximus raised a paw and stammered. “Now-now Markie-boy, think for a second. You really wanna kill me? I mean…if you kill me, you’ll become just like me. It’s always the first kill that determines who you become in life. You stick that blade in my skull, your life changes forever.”

“Stop stalling.”

Maximus shut his eyes and exhaled. “Fine…can I say one more thing? My-my final words?”

“Fine. What is it?”

A long grin spread across Maximus’ face. “Did you _really_ think this would be the end for me?”

Mark’s eyes widened. He snarled and plunged his knife towards Maximus’ head. Having spent enough time resting and gaining some of his strength back, the werewolf was able to rapidly reach up and grab Mark’s arm before the blade went through his scalp. Then he jerked his paws and twisted Mark’s arm so violently that it popped multiple times and the shoulder dislocated. Mark wailed as the knife fell from his hand and he fell to his knees. Then Maximus snarled as he reached over and slammed the door shut, trapping both of them in the van together. Somewhere in the distance, Rachel and Boog were helping Dylan walk as they followed the trail of blood Mark followed. The trio heard a few grunts and snarls over the radio, causing them all to frown. Rachel quickly answered the radio and called out Mark’s name.

“Mark, what’s happening? Mark?!”

Mark screamed over the radio, prompting Rachel to swear and sprint down the street following the blood. She still had no idea where the van was, or that Maximus had violently bashed Mark’s body across the interior of the vehicle. Lying on the floor of the van, Mark whimpered as he tried to grab the knife with his other hand, but Maximus stomped on his fingers, causing the preteen to scream. He rolled Mark over before crouching down and snarling in his face. Then he reached down and pressed his claws against Mark’s upper chest before dragging them all the way down to his waist. His claws were so sharp that they tore right through Mark’s clothing and skin, revealing his bare flesh. Mark coughed and gasped as Maximus repeated the same gesture, dragging his claws down Mark’s center a second time. Snarling and growling, Maximus violently clawed at Mark’s midriff several times, tearing so much flesh away from his body that he went all the way down to his bones. Somehow, Mark was still alive, but barely. Maximus glared at Mark’s body for a moment, watching as his blood spilled from his body profusely.

And then he grabbed Mark’s ribcage and snarled as he jerked the bones around so swiftly that they broke. Mark stopped moving, and Maximus wagged his tail and growled with satisfaction after hearing the ribcage crunch. The adrenaline started to wear off, and the werewolf grunted as he slouched backwards. He reached back and shoved the back doors open so he could make his escape. Huffing and limping, Maximus jogged from the van and disappeared. Since Rachel didn’t want to leave Boog or Dylan behind, she had to wait for them to catch up to her.

“What the hell’s going on?” Dylan asked.

Rachel didn’t answer. She led the other two preteens along the bloody path between the two houses and located the damaged van half-concealed by all the darkness and trees. Rachel picked up her radio after she didn’t hear anything from Mark and called out his name. He didn’t respond.

“Shit…you think he captured him?” Dylan asked.

“No. Oh god, there were two. Guys, what if there’s two werewolves?” Boog asked.

“Just be qu…please no,” said Rachel quietly as she saw blood dripping from the van.

Boog and Dylan stayed still against one of the short trees while Rachel approached the damaged van and grabbed the door handle. They all knew in the back of their minds what happened. Rachel immediately regretted letting him go alone. She should’ve stopped him, should’ve restrained him so he wouldn’t have run off. But she didn’t. And now she was looking at Mark’s corpse with dread. She didn’t know who started screaming first. Maybe they all did at the same time. Boog or Dylan stopped screaming at one point and began to sob. Rachel backed away from the mutilated corpse still screaming and shaking at her discovery. 

None of them knew that Maximus was listening to their screams over the radio and grinning the entire time.


	10. Let’s Arrive Too Late

He dialed the numbers on his phone again and put the cellular device up to his ear. Shaking and sniffling, he wiped some tears from his face before he waited for a ring tone. But the person he was calling had their phone turned off. Boog sobbed softly and lowered his phone, hanging up and breathing heavily. Rachel was letting out shuddering breaths as she tried to calm down her brother, who was still shoving Rachel and shouting at her to get out of his way. Boog turned and looked at the brother and sister fighting before he glanced at the van and saw what was left of Mark. He panted a few times and moaned as he covered his ears, waiting for all the noise to stop. But the sounds were only muffled. He could still hear Dylan screaming and shouting for Rachel to let him go.

“LET GO OF ME! LET GO!” he wailed.

“Dylan—Dylan I’m sorry—”

“Look at him! Look at what he did to him, Rachel!” he sobbed.

“I know you’re upset—”

“I’m past the point of ups—”

“YOU LET ME FINISH!” Rachel screamed.

Dylan shut his mouth. He stopped fighting his sister and stared at her while wiping his face. Rachel sniffled and rubbed some snot from her nose before she spoke.

“I know you’re angry and hurt and upset. But we—we can’t just go after him now. Not with that bullet in your leg, Dylan.”

“Then-then let me draw him out! Let me do what Mark did and use myself as bait!”

“I’m not losing you too! I’m not losing _either_ of you! We should’ve stayed in the house like I said a long time ago!”

“Are you seriously blaming us?” Dylan whined. “You’re saying it’s our fault that this happened?”

“I didn’t say that at all!”

“You’re not denying it either!”

“SHUT UP!” Boog screeched.

Rachel and Dylan looked over at Boog and saw him shaking and crying uncontrollably. He looked over at the other two adolescents as he wrapped his arms around himself.

“Mark’s dead,” he whimpered. “Who cares whose fault it is? Who the fuck cares about-about the ‘what ifs?’ and the ‘we should’ve done this’ or whatever? It…it happened. We’re-we’re still in danger, and we still have to…” Boog stopped talking so he could sniffle and wipe his eyes. “We need help…we can’t do this. That’s twice now we tried to kill that _pendejo_ and we failed! How long’s it gonna be before we’re dead too?”

Rachel shook her head. “That’s not happening. …We’re getting the cops to help us.”

“We tried calling them,” Dylan whined. “They don’t fuckin’ care about us…”

“Then we’ll drive there! There’s gotta be a car around here we can use!”

“But I thought…”

No one could continue their thought before they heard a vehicle coming down the street. Still wary about any random visitors in the area, all three of them promptly moved over to the shrubs and crouched down, shaking and concealing themselves. When the car parked, the driver turned off the engine and got outside carrying a handgun. The passenger came out as well wielding her own weapon.

“All right, same as last time. Check all the houses, tell everyone we find to barricade themselves inside,” said Eddie.

“Got it,” said Giggs.

The group spotted Eddie’s uniform and the colors of the squad car immediately. They threw themselves out of the bushes, startling Eddie as he shined his flashlight and handgun in their direction. When he realized he was aiming for the preteens, he lowered his gun and turned off his flashlight.

“Got some survivors! Three kids it looks like!” Eddie announced.

The officer approached the preteens and gestured for them to get inside the car. “C’mon, let me take you kids home. There’s—”

“We know what’s out here,” Dylan growled.

Eddie panted as he looked at Dylan’s leg and saw the bandage on Boog’s head. All three of them were covered in filth, and Eddie could tell that they had recently been crying.

“Okay, look. You’re all safe now. Everything’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” murmured Boog. “He knows where I live. I can’t go back home; he’ll find me.”

Eddie looked at Rachel and Dylan. “What about you two? You live here with your parents?”

“Our parents are dead,” Rachel said. “It’s…it’s just us.”

Eddie growled. “Fuck it. I’m taking you three to the station and you’ll stay there overnight until this is all sorted out. Now just get in the car—”

“Where were you?” Dylan snarled.

Eddie paused. “What?”

“Where the fuck were you when we called you over _four times_?”

“I’ve been here this entire time working patrol. I’ve been going from house to house all night telling people to lock their doors and windows—hell, to even barricade themselves in their houses.”

“So what, they just sent only two fucking officers to help us?!”

Giggs joined with Eddie again and wiped some sweat off her face. “No, they sent four. Two of ‘em are dead. And we’re not expecting any more help until morning.”

“Why the fuck not?!”

“It’s complicated,” Giggs said, dodging the question.

“No,” said Rachel. “You owe all of us an explanation. If I called the cops, other people did too. And you two are the _only ones_ who showed up. What the fuck is going on?”

Eddie turned around after hearing a noise in the scenery and shined his flashlight up the road. He panted a few times before gesturing towards his cruiser again.

“We can talk about this _later_ , when you’re safe. What matters is that we’re here now.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you, Mr. Police Officer. Thank you so fucking much for showing up _after_ one of our friends got killed!” Dylan screamed.

Eddie blinked. “What?”

As the young adolescents were talking to Eddie, Giggs saw the trail of blood in the soil and followed it between the two houses. She spotted the wheel-less van only a minute later, and shined her flashlight inside the open vehicle. It only took a few seconds to recognize the body inside, and she whimpered and turned away, walking back over to rejoin with the group. Eddie could tell by Giggs’ horrified expression that Dylan was telling the truth. Eddie lowered his head for a moment before he scowled.

“I’m sorry about your friend.”

“No, you’re not,” Dylan growled. “You don’t care about him. You don’t give a fuck about any of us!”

“What?”

“That’s-that’s just what you cops say because you’re _supposed_ to say it! But you really don’t care! You see this shit all the fucking time—it’s just a walk in the park for you!”

Eddie’s nostrils flared as he looked at the wounded preteen. “Now look—”

“No, I’m sick of this shit! How many fucking times do you cops make shit worse?! How many fucking times do you adults spout your hypocritical bullshit about how we’re supposed to be ‘responsible’ and ‘kind’ and ‘mature,’ yet you dumb fucks are the ones committing crime and killing innocent people and getting arrested while us children are the ones trying to be ‘upstanding citizens’ or whatever the fuck it is?!”

“I understand that you’re upset,” growled Eddie, “and I won’t even try to imagine what you three went through. But I’m here now! It’s over! You’re safe! So get in the car!”

“Why, so you can take us all into a trap? Why else would it take you this long to show up? Why else haven’t the rest of the cops showed up?!”

“Because the rest of the cops are incompetent twats!” Giggs blurted out. “I can’t explain what happened—it’s too complicated and fucking infuriating. But the sheriff in charge of the station we work at does not wanna come here out of laziness.”

Eddie glared at Giggs and elbowed her. “Shut the fuck up,” he murmured.

“No, Eddie,” she said, before turning to the adolescents. “Fine. I’m not gonna patronize you. I’m not gonna talk down to you or lie. Basically…what happened is that we’ve been getting prank calls all night. Well over twenty of them—all from _this_ location. I got a call earlier saying two people had been killed. And I didn’t pay attention to it. Turns out that call was real and I ignored it.”

The three adolescents exhaled or glared at Giggs, with Dylan in question forming a fist, ready to punch one of the officers.

“You stupid _cunt_.”

Giggs didn’t lash out at Dylan, but she still scowled after hearing the word. She paused for a moment before continuing.

“When Eddie Sanchez—the officer standing next to me—found out about the call, he went up to investigate. He found the bodies and called for backup. No one showed up. So he kept exploring this neighborhood. Found more bodies, including two officers who were on patrol down here. So he called it in. Again, no one showed up. While all this was happening, I was explaining to the two jackasses who run our station what happened. And instead of doing the right thing and sending out every deputy we got or at least sending someone to investigate, they decided to sweep all this shit under the rug.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. “You’re shitting me.”

“No. Apparently, it’s better for the public if a tragedy occurred overnight and we had no knowledge of it, as opposed to the tragedy occurring largely because of police negligence.”

Eddie and Giggs could see that all three adolescents were just as angry as they were upset, but none of them knew what to say or do anymore. They could also tell that everyone in the group was exhausted and just wanted this horrendous nightmare to end. Eddie exhaled and rubbed his head.

“You can be mad as us all you want. You can hate us. But we’re _here_. Our other officers who ‘protect and serve’ either don’t know what’s going on down here or are too fucking idiotic to do anything about it. So say what you want. But we’re the ones busting our asses _trying_ to save everyone in this neighborhood.”

Dylan stepped over to the two police officers and started gritting his teeth. Nothing would’ve made him feel any better than punching or striking someone, even if he had to hit a tree or a car. But as Dylan opened his mouth and was about to scream or swear at them, he just sobbed and started whimpering. He backed away from the officers and started crying, just as Rachel walked up behind him and held him closely. Dylan sobbed as his body shook and he turned and pressed his head into Rachel’s chest. Rachel looked down at her brother with tears in her eyes as she slowly rubbed the back of his head and tried to comfort him. Sniffling, Rachel looked up at the police officers and exhaled.

“Please just…just take us to the station. We can’t go anywhere else.”

Eddie and Giggs looked at the battered preteens before they gestured towards their police cruiser. “C’mon…let’s get out of here.”

The officers led the preteens into the backseat of the car while they got into the passenger and driver’s seats up front. Eddie started up the car and drove around the cul-de-sac before he started to head towards the subdivision’s exit. Eddie looked in the backseat and glanced at the preteens before he turned and looked at Giggs, who was staring out the window and holding her chin. He grunted to himself as he looked outside the windows and in the mirrors, checking to see if Maximus was following them.

“It ain’t your fault,” Eddie remarked.

Giggs exhaled and wiped her eyes. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Yes, you were. That’s what people like you always do. You fuck up, and then blame yourself for everything that’s happened. So let me ask you: did you murder innocent people tonight?”

“No.”

“Did you terrorize anyone tonight?”

“No.”

“Did you choose to sit on your ass and do nothing while all these innocent people needed help?”

Giggs huffed. “No, Sanchez.”

“So then why do you look like you’re about to cry?”

Giggs paused for a moment before she wiped her eyes again and looked outside the window. Everything seemed almost serene now, even though Maximus still had multiple bodies spread around the vast neighborhood. She looked at everyone’s yards as Eddie drove around the subdivision. Some houses looked relatively untouched, and she assumed that Eddie warned the owners before Maximus got to them. Some houses were still intact, but had been vandalized with graffiti, rotten eggs, or toilet paper. But every now and again, Giggs would see faint silhouettes of corpses lying in the yards or a pair of legs sticking out from beneath a set of bushes. After gazing outside, Giggs moved away from the window and looked in the backseat. Rachel was still comforting her brother, although now Dylan’s eyelids were drooping, and his head kept lolling forward, as if he was about to slouch and pass out on the floor. Boog’s hands were shaking as he kept punching numbers into his phone, desperate to call someone. The preteens didn’t say anything, and Giggs turned away and relaxed in her seat once more.

“This shouldn’t be something kids their age gotta deal with,” she murmured. “It’s Halloween. They should be out getting candy and toys from strangers—hell, they should be in bed by now. Already past three in the morning. I just don’t understand why people put kids through shit like this.”

Eddie shrugged. “There ain’t no reason. Just some sick assholes out there that enjoy others’ misery,” he replied, before making a right turn. “All we can do is help when we can and keep these sadists off the streets. It’s that simple."

Giggs scoffed. “If it were that simple, all these kids would be safe by now, and we probably wouldn’t have had to come down here.”

“Well,” said Eddie, before pausing. “Lotta _other_ assholes who are lazy. It’s our job to step in and help those in need when our supposedly glorious work force can’t do it.” 

“I just wish I could go back and change what I said. Maybe Umberton and Tully wouldn’t be trying so hard to save their asses if I had just—”

“I’m sure there’s some alternate reality where you _did_ send backup. I’m sure there’s some alternate reality where those kids in the backseat still got their parents. I’m sure there’s some alternate reality where I’m still married, and I’m out trick-or-treating with my daughter. But that’s not what’s happening _now_ , and we can’t change that.”

The officers stayed silent for a moment and kept gazing out the windows as they pondered about their personal lives and what had occurred in the past several hours. As they talked quietly amongst themselves, Rachel leaned her head against the window, breathing softly to herself as she tried to get some sleep. She could hear Dylan breathing quietly to himself as he slept in her lap, while a glowing light kept interrupting her rest. Rachel winced and wiped her eyes after noticing the blue light glowing from the other side of the car. She looked at Boog and realized he was still teary-eyed and unnerved.

“What’s wrong?”

Boog shook his head. “They’re still not answering…my parents.”

“They’ll be fine, Boog. I’m sure they’re just sleeping.”

“No. They-they can stay up for a full day straight, especially if they have work to worry about. I just wanna call ‘em again…last time we talked, I told them they weren’t concerned about me, that they don’t care.”

“Children always say mean things to their parents when they’re mad. It’s not uncommon.”

“It’s different when you may not see them again and the last thing you told them was that they care more about their job than their son.”

“Boog, you didn’t mean—”

“I just wanna call them,” Boog said, his voice cracking as he held the phone up to his ear. “Just once…”

Rachel stared at Boog as he wiped his nose and listened to the phone ringing on the other end of the line. A few seconds later, Boog whined and shut his eyes as he lowered his phone. Rachel didn’t inquire about Boog’s family after seeing his pained expression. She just turned away slowly and looked out the window again. As the houses and yards full of cheap Halloween decorations passed by, Rachel slowly closed her eyes again, leaning against the window as she began to lose consciousness. Some minutes later, the police cruiser came to a screeching halt when Giggs pointed out an obstruction in the middle of the road. Somehow, a series of small, tipped-over trees and even a thick log had been pushed out into the street, blocking the cruiser’s only way in or out of the subdivision.

“Blocked,” Eddie snarled.

“Can you get around it?” Giggs asked.

Eddie turned and looked out the rearview window, snorting. “Not sure. I could try—”

Drops of fluids began to drip onto the windshield. Eddie stared at the fluids and squinted.

“What the hell?”

Leaves started to fall to the ground, and the branches in the trees hanging above the car cracked. Eddie had just shifted the car into reverse when something heavy landed on the hood, putting a dent into the car’s exterior. Eddie and Giggs shouted as they looked at Maximus’ drooling maw.

“OH SHIT!”

Rachel and Dylan woke up, and then shrieked when Maximus thrust his left arm through the windshield, shattering it as he reached forward and grabbed Eddie’s face. Eddie shouted in a muffled voice as the giant paw smothered his face. Maximus snarled as he jerked his arm backwards, hauling Eddie’s body through the shattered window as well. Eddie’s body was halfway through when Giggs took her shotgun and fired at Maximus. The werewolf yelped and let go, his body collapsing backwards onto the ground. Giggs immediately got out of the car while Maximus panted and got to his footpaws, reaching for Eddie’s body again. The preteens in the back were shouting for the police to return to the car, but Giggs simply pumped her shotgun and fired at Maximus again. The canine shouted as he was thrown backwards, taking Eddie with him as they both fell to the ground. Thinking quickly, Rachel dug into her pocket and took out her knife before tossing it out the broken window.

“TAKE IT! You can’t kill him unless you have silver!”

Giggs looked inside the car with wide eyes, thinking she heard a joke. “What?!”

And just like that, Maximus groaned as he rolled over onto his stomach and started to push himself back up. Meanwhile, Eddie’s face was shredded from the glass and Maximus’ sharp claws. Half-blind, the officer grunted as he reached for his handgun and staggered to get the knife off the ground. As soon as he swiped it up, Eddie panted and pointed his gun at Maximus while the werewolf slowly started to get up. 

“Take the kids! Take ‘em to the station now!”

“Eddie, I’m not—”

Giggs was cut off when Eddie shouted, “I SAID GO!”

Giggs looked around at all the chaos. Eddie was pointing his handgun at the werewolf with one hand and grasping the knife with the other. Boog and Dylan were both shouting and trying to open the back doors, going as far as punching and kicking at it, while Rachel was struggling to make her way to the driver’s seat. Knowing the danger they were in, Giggs chose to protect the preteens first. She sprinted into the car and slammed the door shut before she pressed her foot down on the gas pedal, gunning the car forward. Giggs and the preteens shouted as the car collided with the log and fallen trees, crushing some of the branches while also knocking the log over so that it rolled slightly at an angle. Giggs breathed heavily as she put the car in reverse and backed up, seconds before she pressed her foot on the gas pedal and slammed into the log again. Everyone jolted forward, with Rachel nearly scraping her arm against the glass in the front seat. Giggs looked at Rachel and pointed at the backseat.

“SIT DOWN! We’re getting out of here!”

“No…no, we have to help him!” Rachel pleaded.

“I’m not putting any of you in harm’s way!” Giggs shouted.

“No, you—” Dylan shouted when Eddie fired at Maximus a few times with his handgun. He looked out the window and noticed that Maximus was still standing, albeit he was staggering slightly. “He can’t kill that beast with guns! You don’t understand!”

Giggs ignored him. All of them were tired and wounded; they couldn’t help Eddie in the state he was in. So Giggs huffed as she backed up the car, and then she hit the gas pedal and aimed for the log again.

“WAIT!” Dylan pleaded.

But Giggs kept on driving, this time pushing the giant log out of the way with the car’s bumper. She took a sharp right and sped down the road while Eddie emptied the clip of his pistol. He listened to the gun click twice before he swore with frustration and got into a fighting stance. Eddie stared at the beast as Maximus panted and growled. He gritted his teeth slowly and snarled, still bleeding from the wounds he didn’t patch up. The bullets, however, were slowly pushed out of Maximus’ body as his insides morphed and regenerated the flesh and bone that hadn’t been damaged by silver. Officer Sanchez stared at Maximus with wide eyes.

“That’s not…what the fuck _are_ you?” he asked, terrified.

Maximus chuckled as he stared at the officer and drooled. “Hard to kill…obviously,” he huffed.

Eddie shouted as he lunged for Maximus, hoping to jam the knife into his skull. Maximus side-stepped him, but immediately afterwards, he staggered and grasped his torso, panting. The werewolf huffed several times before he walked towards Eddie. The officer swiped his knife at him multiple times, the knife slicing through the air without making contact with Maximus’ body. The werewolf snarled and grinned as the cop sniffled and shook his head, his face still bloody. He could still feel tiny glass fragments that were stuck in his eyeballs and tried not to blink.

“You can’t beat me, _pig_. Your pussy-ass friends didn’t beat me, those stupid kids didn’t beat me, _no one_ can beat me! Just…just fall down,” said Maximus, gesturing to the ground. “Lie down. Don’t bother; I’m gonna kill you either way. At least if you lie down, I’ll just painlessly break your neck.”

Eddie didn’t listen. He quickly went for Maximus again, this time swiping his knife around at Maximus’ head. Maximus dodged and weaved a few times, but his wounds sent a pang of agony through the canine’s bones, causing him to falter. Eddie shouted as he stabbed Maximus to the right of his heart, the silver blade plunging through the flesh with a soft hiss. Not taking any chances, Maximus lashed his claws at Eddie swiftly, cutting three fingers off his right hand. Eddie hollered and backed away as the knife and his fingers fell down, plopping on the ground while blood gushed from his severed digits. Before Eddie could find another weapon to attack with, Maximus sprinted for Eddie and grabbed his throat, digging his claws into his skin. He clenched his paw and dug the claws in deeper, puncturing the flesh. Then he jerked his paw backwards, tearing out the man’s Adam’s apple, along with a substantial amount of flesh and part of Eddie’s larynx. Eddie tried to scream, but all that came out was a horrific gurgling noise as he vomited up blood.

Maximus smirked as he watched Eddie stagger with copious amounts of blood running down what was left of his neck and around his chest. He stopped gurgling and slouched over, dying shortly after he landed on the ground with a hard thud. Maximus discarded the officer’s mutilated throat and panted as he walked out of the subdivision. He still had no idea how serious his wounds were, but the canine refused to let his prey get away. 

“I’m coming for ya,” the beast growled.


	11. Let’s Get the Cops to Help Us

Umberton knew something was wrong when he heard screeching out in the distance. He flicked his eyes over at Tully while the remaining deputies inside the building heard the squealing as well and stood up.

“The hell is that?” asked the dispatcher replacing Giggs.

“Nothing, just keep working.”

The two officers in charge watched as the police cruiser stopped in the parking lot, and the driver immediately opened the door. Umberton watched as the driver walked to the back of the car and released the three occupants inside. Umberton growled when he noticed Giggs storming towards the station.

“The fuck is she doing here?” Tully growled.

Giggs pushed open the front door, panting and holding her shotgun as sweat covered her face. “I need help!”

Umberton grumbled before putting on a faux smile. “Hey, Giggs! Why are you—”

Umberton didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Giggs bashed the butt of her gun against his face, breaking his nose. Rachel entered the station as well, with Boog helping Dylan as he limped behind him. One of the deputies noticed that Dylan was injured and hurried over to go find a medical kit, whilst the dispatcher and the other deputy rose from their desks and rushed for Giggs and Umberton.

“Giggs, what the hell are you doing?!” the dispatcher asked.

Giggs exhaled as she looked at the dispatcher. “Have you been getting calls from the Green Water subdivision?”

“Yeah, whole bunch. Umber told me that they were all prank calls though and to ignore them.”

Giggs scowled as she looked at Umberton and Tully again. The dispatcher flicked her eyes between Giggs and the two officers in charge before she exhaled and looked at the tired, wounded preteens.

“Um…they weren’t prank calls, were they?”

The other officer looked at Umberton and Tully and huffed. “Why the fuck would you idiots tell us _not_ to send backup when someone needed it?!”

Dylan cleared his throat. “So…to be clear: these two idiots,” Dylan said, pointing at Tully and Umberton, “told you all _not_ to send reinforcements to our subdivision when we needed it. And you were dumb enough to obey him the entire night. And then you, lady,” said Dylan, pointing at Giggs, “hung up on my friend when he called you desperately needing help, and then when you ‘rescue’ us, you decide to leave a single police officer by himself to try and kill a homicidal werewolf, who I’m more than certain is probably dead now.”

Dylan shook his head and huffed. “You cops are fucking _idiots_.”

Giggs scowled as she looked at Dylan, but chose to ignore him, knowing full well he was mostly talking out of frustration. She glared at Umberton and Tully again before she pointed at the interrogation room. “Jonny, take ‘em in holding for now. We’ll hold them there until morning.”

Jonny stopped examining Dylan’s leg and looked at Giggs. “It _is_ morning. It’s past four—”

“JONNY!”

The officer exhaled as he waved the preteens over to the interrogation room. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Jonny slowly escorted the preteens into the holding room while Giggs looked at Umberton and Tully. She pointed her shotgun at the officers before looking at the dispatcher and the other deputy

“Kristie, Leysha, put Tully and Umberton in the cell.”

Umberton grinned at Giggs while Tully looked between the two officers and frowned. “Um, Sheriff?”

“You’re making a mistake here, Giggs,” Umberton growled.

“I know. And I’m not doing it again. Take ‘em!”

Kristie and Leysha flicked their eyes between each other, just when Kristie saw Umberton slowly reaching for his side. She rushed over to Umberton and grabbed his arms from behind, causing the man to shout as she quickly took out her handcuffs and clicked them around the man’s wrists. Tully was about to do the same until Giggs aimed the shotgun at him instead.

“Don’t!”

Tully quickly raised his hands as Giggs moved her fingers closer to the trigger. Then he grunted and groaned when Leysha grabbed his hands as well and jerked them down behind his back. Giggs looked over her shoulder outside, spotting a ratty pickup truck driving past the station, just as Kristie and Leysha finished disarming and handcuffing the corrupt officers. She kept her gun trained on them while the other deputies escorted them over to the open cell, shoving them down onto the small cot that both of them could barely fit on. Moments later, they shut the barred door, and Giggs lowered her shotgun. As the officers continued to get situated in the main reception area, Boog, Rachel and Dylan were resting in the interrogation room. Boog was pacing back and forth as he dialed the number for his parents again, while Dylan was looking down at the clean gauze wrapped around his leg. He winced as he touched the wound, and Rachel smacked his hand away.

“Don’t pick at it. It’ll get infected,” she ordered.

Dylan just nodded slowly and moved his hand away. Suddenly, Boog lowered his cell phone and swore.

“Shit! FUCK!”

The seething teenager felt like breaking his phone. He sniffled and ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t even get a signal now. This fucking—”

“Just-just relax, Boog. Maybe it’s the room,” she said, pointing at the thick walls. “Just ask the officers if you can use their phone.”

Boog exhaled. “Fuck it…fine. I gotta piss again anyway; I’ll ask ‘em to help me get my costume off, and then I’ll try calling my parents again in the bathroom. Not that they’ll pick up…”

Rachel shrugged. “Worth a shot.”

The preteen exhaled as he exited the interrogation room and approached the deputies. Meanwhile, Dylan stayed inside with Rachel and leaned against the wall. He stared at his brown shoes and blue overalls before he reached up and took off his hat. The preteen rubbed some dirt and filth from his hair while Rachel stood by him and placed an arm around his shoulders.

“You okay?”

Dylan shook his head and rubbed his gloved hands together. “I was…I had a dream about ‘em, when we were in the car. He was in the kitchen making pancakes, and she was pouring us a glass of orange juice. I don’t remember what happened afterwards—it was too fast. But for a brief moment, I just thought…”

Rachel nodded. “You thought that was real, and _this_ was the nightmare.”

Dylan sniffled. “She looked just like you, Rach,” he said softly. “And Dad was…it-it was a normal family. Just a normal family eating breakfast. Then that furry asshole landed on top of the car, and I woke up. It’s not fair, Rachel…at least _you_ still remember what they looked like, what they sounded like.”

Silence filled the room after Dylan finished talking. Rachel looked down at Dylan and could see that he was either on the verge of crying or passing out from exhaustion and stress.

“C’mere, hey, c’mon,” she said, before wrapping her arms around him. She grunted when he grabbed her hard and buried his head into her shirt. Rachel rubbed his back tenderly before sniffling.

“This _is_ just a nightmare…okay? That’s all it is. I’m sorry that you and Boog had to go through this, and I’m sorry that Mark—” She had to stop when she noticed that her voice was cracking. Rachel closed her eyes slowly and listened as Dylan sniffled as well. She could feel his tears staining her clothing, the salty tears bleeding into her shirt. Then Rachel exhaled as two of her own tears ran down her cheeks.

“It’ll all be over soon. We’ll wake up soon, and this’ll all be over…”

Rachel exhaled a few times and sobbed herself as she comforted her brother.

“We’ll wake up soon…”

_______________________________

Giggs rose from her chair the second the lights flickered. And then she shouted when they cut off.

“FUCK!”

Jonny exhaled. “Damn wind. Must’ve—”

“No, Jonny! Get the shotguns! He’s here!”

As Giggs began to prepare the other deputies in the station and grabbed flashlights, Umberton glanced over at Tully and tugged on his handcuffs. He gestured for Tully to move towards the bars whilst Umberton looked for something he could use to escape. 

“Get ‘em to free us,” Umberton ordered.

Tully stammered. “Hey, uhhhhh, we feel like sitting ducks here! Mind letting us out?” 

Kristie shined a flashlight at the cell, making Umberton and Tully squint after the light temporarily blinded them. “Just be quiet. We got this taken care of; you’re better off in there anyways.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to have some extra hands helping you, y’know,” added Umberton.

Giggs walked over to the cell and opened her mouth. Before she could utter a syllable, one of the windows broke. Giggs yelped before pointing at Leysha and gesturing the policewoman to head towards the noise. Both of them rushed towards the back side of the building, where they turned a corner in one of the corridors and shined their flashlights at one of the broken windows. Panting, Giggs maneuvered through the halls, cautiously stepping around the glass, before she grunted when she nearly tripped over a heavy item. Giggs stopped walking just as Leysha shined her flashlight down at the floor. She shivered as she examined a brick, knowing in an instant that something was wrong.

“Shit.”

Giggs shouted again when another window broke. Only this time, immediately after the window shattered, she heard Jonny and Kristie screaming. A series of gunshots went off as Giggs and Leysha rushed back to the entrance. But by the time they got there, the gunfire had stopped, and Maximus was nowhere to be found. Leysha and Giggs saw Kristie and Jonny lying on the floor. Kristie’s intestines had spilled out, and Jonny was gurgling and gagging as his tongue flopped from his now jawless mouth. He let out a faint throaty gurgle before he slowly stopped moving and his body relaxed. Shaking, Giggs shined her flashlight and shotgun at the cell, where she noticed that Tully was shaking uncontrollably.

“OPEN THE FUCKING CELL!” Tully demanded.

Giggs shook her head. “N-no. I’m not taking the risk—”

“Kristie and Jonny are dead, Giggs! We need more people to help us fight whatever the hell just got in here!” Leysha cried.

Umberton snorted. “Just looked like a giant mutt to me. Shouldn’t be all that difficult to kill a mangy dog. Course, she’s right. More time we stand here bitching, easier it’ll be for that beast to kill us all.” Smirking, Umberton added, “You wanna be responsible for the deaths of those kids _you_ brought here?”

Even now when they were all in danger, Umberton still was trying to figure out a way to get out of his impending punishment. Giggs scowled as she looked at Umberton’s grin, only moments before they all heard something growling deeply from the other end of the building. Tully was sweating so much that he looked like he was having a heart attack. Umberton kicked at the bars and huffed.

“C’mon, let us out! You didn’t see how fast that thing killed Kristie and Jonny; let us the fuck out so we can help you!”

“God—Leysha open the cell and uncuff ‘em!”

Leysha nodded before she rushed to the cell and unlocked it. As she pushed the bars open, Giggs kept her shotgun pointed at the end of the hall, moving forward very slowly after she thought she saw part of Maximus’ tail. Tully and Umberton exhaled with relief after the handcuffs were taken off, and Leysha turned and pointed her gun down the hall too.

“Did you see him? Leysha asked.

“No, but I-I think I saw—”

Neither of them was paying attention, given that they had more pressing matters to attend to. When Leysha turned her back, Umberton reached forward and snatched her handgun from her holster. By the time she realized what Umberton had done, he had already fired off a shot. Brain and skull fragments exploded from Leysha’s head as she dropped to the floor. Giggs snapped around and pointed her shotgun at Umberton, just as Tully shouted and got between the two of them.

“Umber, what the fuck are you doing?!” Tully shouted.

“What’s it look like?! He’s trying to save his own ass!”

Umberton smirked as she pointed the gun at Giggs. Or rather, he tried to, but Tully kept jerking his head over and blocking his shot. Tully grunted and winced as he stretched out his arms and blocked Giggs’ shot too, forcing both officers to hold their fire.

“Do neither of you realize the fucking danger we’re in?! We can’t sit here and kill each other when there’s a monster in here already trying to kill us!”

“Tully, you know what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna get prosecuted and we’re going to jail! S’far as I know, if there ain’t no witnesses, ain’t no way anyone will figure out what we did.”

“I don’t care about that! We’re not gonna make it outta here if we’re busy fighting each other!”

Umberton chuckled and pointed at the front door. “Door’s right there. We just gotta sprint for it.”

Giggs scoffed. “The killer was smart enough to disable the lights. You really think he didn’t slash the tires or disable the cars too?”

Umberton shrugged. “Won’t hurt to try. Now, Tulls, get the fuck out the way. Once she’s gone, we’re home free.”

“Uh-uh, I know how this goes! We run outside thinking we made it, then suddenly the killer comes out and ambushes both of us! Stop fucking around and lower the gun, Umber!”

“No. We’ll make it, Tulls; we just gotta take care of her first. I’m sure it won’t be long before this killer gets to those kids back there too.”

“I’m not moving. Like it or not, she’s the only one who can help us defeat that beast.”

After all the tension died down, Umberton looked at Tully’s sweaty forehead before he flicked his eyes over his shoulder and saw Giggs steadily dropping her guard. After pondering a moment, he glared at Tully and smirked.

“Okay.”

Tully didn’t even hear it happen. The bullet soared between his eyes, splattering blood all over Giggs’ face. Startled and partially blinded by all the blood, Giggs lowered her shotgun just a bit out of Umberton’s way. The sheriff used the small window of opportunity to shoot Giggs three times. She groaned as the bullets slammed into her chest, but as she fell, she still managed to squeeze her fingers against the trigger on the shotgun. Umberton shouted as he was partially hit by the blast, the force of the shotgun sending him spiraling to the floor as some of the pellets punctured his body armor and went through his flesh. The sheriff groaned as he lied on the floor, coughing and wincing as he attempted to stand up. Meanwhile, Giggs was bleeding out, panting softly as she tried to find something she could use to help herself stand up. From the other end of the hallway, Maximus turned and peeked down the corridor. He smirked to himself as he looked at the dead police officers, surprised that they had all turned on each other. Acting casually, Maximus limped his way towards the prison cell, where he stood over Giggs and grinned.

“How lovely. You dumbasses made it easier for me.”

Giggs didn’t have the strength to protect herself. Maximus moved his footpaw onto her chest and pressed down. The dispatcher grunted as she felt pressure being applied against her bullet wounds. Suddenly, Maximus raised his left leg and stomped on Giggs’ chest hard. Even with how wounded he was, the canine was still able to crack some of her ribs. Giggs shouted as she felt her ribs cracking, seconds before Maximus lifted his leg and stomped on her again. This time one of the ribs noisily broke, the bone shattering and curling downwards into her chest cavity. He repeated the gesture a third time, stomping on Giggs so hard that he was certain he ruptured at least one of Giggs’ lungs. The officer’s body stopped moving, and Giggs let out a tiny whimper as her fingers went still. Nevertheless, Maximus stomped on her chest a fourth time anyway, grinning with satisfaction when he listened to her entire ribcage shattering and breaking underneath his grimy footpaw. When the monster finished breaking most of Giggs’ ribs, he panted as he made his way over to Umberton, who was still struggling to stand up. He collapsed onto his knees and panted as he crawled for the gun he dropped, moments before Maximus finally reached him.

Umberton finally grabbed the gun and lifted it, but by then Maximus had already grabbed him. The werewolf clutched Umberton’s wrist and violently twisted it, snapping it so hard that some of the bones popped and broke, the broken bones protruding against the skin. Umberton screamed for a moment, and then stopped when Maximus slammed Umberton’s head against the wall. He turned the sheriff around before he jammed his paw inside Umberton’s mouth. The officer gagged and let out muffled screams as Maximus grabbed his tongue and slowly pulled backwards. The werewolf was shocked at how long the tongue extended before he was able to rip it off, and then blood spluttered from Umberton’s mouth as he screamed in a muffled voice. He nonchalantly tossed the tongue away before snarling and swiping his claws at Umberton’s abdomen. He lacerated the man’s stomach multiple times until he formed an opening large enough to stick his paws inside. Once he did, he latched his fingers around the officer’s intestines and walked backwards, unwinding them with a series of squelches. Between his severed tongue and all the shock he was going through, Umberton could barely scream anymore.

Maximus took much pleasure in watching the man’s fat, bile, fecal matter and blood ooze from his exposed wound, leaving a foul-smelling puddle of sludge around the cop’s legs and shoes. The werewolf nearly stretched Umberton’s intestines out by an entire foot before he stopped and let go. The organs splattered on the floor messily, and Umberton collapsed and fell face first into his own fetid fluids. The beast exhaled as he looked at all the dead deputies on the floor. He grunted and limped back outside while Dylan and Rachel stayed inside the interrogation room whimpering. They listened to the silence for a moment, and then Rachel pressed her ear against the door.

“I think…I think it’s over,” Rachel suggested.

“It sounded like everyone just shot themselves!” Dylan said.

Rachel huffed and wiped her forehead. “Let’s just get Boog and get the fuck outta here.”

“I hear ya.”

Dylan grabbed the door handle and slowly pushed it open, panting as the door creaked and he slowly looked outside. Surprisingly, Maximus wasn’t in front of the door. Dylan poked his head out and looked to his left, scowling when he saw Umberton and part of Kristie’s bodies on the floor.

“Shit…okay, let’s—”

Two thudding footsteps sounded in Dylan’s ears. He looked to his right and gasped as he saw Maximus grinning at him. 

“Hey,” he growled gutturally beside him.

Dylan took out his knife instinctively. Maximus shoved his body against the door, slamming it so hard that Dylan’s hand got caught in the doorframe. Dylan howled as he dropped the knife, and then shouted when Maximus slammed the door a second time against his arm. Then he grabbed Dylan’s shirt and dragged his head into the path of the door before slamming it a third time, rendering Dylan unconscious. Rachel continued to shout as she tried to get outside, but Maximus shoved Dylan back into the room before shutting the door and locking it. He smirked as he listened to Rachel swearing and pounding on the door, and then flared his nostrils and detected a familiar scent. Small whimpers filled Maximus’ ears, and he turned and looked at the machete and can of gasoline he brought into the building from the pickup truck he stole. Grunting, he picked up both items before kicking open the bathroom door. And then he saw Boog, sitting in the corner of the bathroom crying softly and muttering to himself. Boog didn’t react; he just kept his eyes shut and covered his ears.

Feeding off Boog’s fear, Maximus looked around the bathroom as he dropped the gas and placed his claws against the right wall. He took a few steps forward and dragged his claws against the sturdy wall, scraping them noisily and peeling off some of the paint. Then he picked up the gas canister, shortly before he slowly dragged the machete against the floor, scratching at the tiles and leaving various marks. He crouched down behind Boog and tapped him gently in the back of his head.

“Hey,” he growled. “Look at me.”

Boog still had his ears covered and was shaking. Maximus slammed the machete against the floor and snarled.

“LOOK AT ME!”

Boog stopped crying and shaking. He lowered his hands briefly and turned around, sniffling and gasping as he looked at the werewolf. Maximus wagged his tail as he stood back up and looked down at the preteen.

“There, there…no reason to cry,” he whispered. “Fun’s almost over. Just you and those two other kids left.”

Boog reached over as he aimed his flashlight upwards towards Maximus’s body and face. He looked at the wounds closely and could see that he was still bleeding, and Maximus looked physically drained.

“You-you’re…you’re dying,” Boog concluded.

“That’s a side effect of getting stabbed…right?” Maximus huffed. “Ah well. I most certainly enjoyed myself tonight…how ‘bout you?”

As Maximus expected, Boog didn’t answer. He nodded and kept on talking.

“Since I’m in such a grand mood…I’ll let you pick! Shall I chop you up into pieces, pop all your fleshy chunks into my mouth like little cubes of steak?”

Maximus banged the machete against the floor three times before he looked at his red can of gasoline and shook it a few times. The fluids inside sloshed around, and Maximus waved the can in front of Boog’s face.

“Or perhaps I should fry your ass and munch on your corpse like it was a drumstick? Hehe, it has been a while since I’ve eaten cooked meat.”

Maximus didn’t expect Boog to answer, so he looked at his two items and decided on his own. He thought in his mind briefly before tossing the machete out the bathroom and holding the gas can instead. He popped open the can and snickered as he held it over Boog. As he tilted the can down, Boog spluttered when the pungent fluids got all over his costume and around his hair and face. Then Maximus poured some of the gas around the floor as well, just to make sure that Boog didn’t try to escape the room. Just when Maximus took out a box of matches, his ears twitched as a phone rang. Boog shouted as he stuffed his hand into his pocket and took out his cell phone. He paused.

“Who’s that?”

Boog looked at the caller ID and didn’t know whether to laugh or to sob again. Then he looked up at Maximus almost pleadingly. The werewolf growled.

“Ohhhhhh…your parents! Well, go on! Answer it!”

Boog did as instructed and picked up the phone. Maximus listened to the frantic rapid speaking from the other end of the line. Boog talked to his parents in Spanish, although Maximus could only make out a few phrases, namely _lo siento_. The werewolf rubbed his chin for a moment before he nodded and exhaled.

“Tell them you love them very much.”

Boog panted and clutched his phone. “I…I love you. I love you both very much.”

“Good, that’s-that’s good!” Maximus licked his teeth. “Tell them you’re going to die and there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Boog sobbed and paused for a moment, covering his mouth with one hand as he started crying again. “I’m…I’m going—” Boog’s voice cracked as he kept sniffling. “I’m gonna die…and you can’t…”

He couldn’t finish. All Boog could do was cover his eyes as his entire body kept shaking. Maximus stared at his prey and licked his lips again, unable to stop himself from drooling. He crouched down and got in Boog’s face.

“You’re doing just fine, Boog. Now…now tell them that you’re gonna be burned alive, and that you died screaming.”

Boog stared at the beast’s face and exhaled as he tried to keep his composure. He slowly reached down with his right hand as he gripped his cell phone with his left one. Then Boog swallowed hard and sniffled.

“Just know that I…I died…”

“Yes, yes, finish!”

Boog suddenly scowled at Maximus. “I died, and I took a fucking werewolf with me!”

Maximus frowned. And then Boog screamed as he swiftly removed a silver knife from his costume’s pocket and stabbed Maximus in his right eye. The werewolf howled hysterically as half of his vision immediately went black. He stood up and staggered backwards while Boog screamed and charged forward. Adrenaline pumping in his veins, Boog slammed the werewolf down and got on top of him. Crying and screaming, Boog lifted the knife with both hands and repeatedly plunged it down into Maximus’ body, stabbing him in the stomach, chest and neck over and over again. Maximus shouted as pain flowed through his body, the silver burning through his flesh like acid. Boog kept puncturing the flesh over and over again, hoping to go for the heart.

“DIE!” he wailed.

Boog shrieked as he went for Maximus’ head. But before he could stab him in the skull, Maximus lifted his paw and blocked the knife. The blade went right through, and Maximus clenched his paw shut, grabbing both the knife and Boog’s hand. Huffing and panting, Maximus held onto Boog’s hand tightly while he struggled to get back on his footpaws. Once he was up, Boog shouted as he wiggled his way out of the werewolf’s grasp. He landed on the floor and took out a silver fork, lunging for the beast again. But this time around, Maximus grabbed him tightly, wrapping his arms around his back and pressing him against his furry body in a vicious bear hug. Snarling, Maximus tightened his grip more and more as each second passed. His grip was so tight that Boog thought someone was slowly driving a truck onto his spine. And the result was the same: his spine snapped in half. Boog let out a tiny grunt as he listened to the cracks and suddenly lost all feeling below his waist. Maximus threw Boog’s broken body into the bathroom, where the preteen landed on his back and gasped a few times. He whimpered as he looked to his right and saw his cell phone in the corner of the bathroom.

Maximus, half-blind and barely able to stand, slid down to the floor and sat with his back pressed against the wall. He stared at Boog with scorn before he reached over and grabbed the box of matches, groaning and grunting as he grasped the small container. He took out a match, coughing up blood and wheezing, and lit it. Meanwhile, Boog reached over and grabbed his phone, putting it up to his ear as he listened to his parents crying over the phone. There was nothing he could say that would ease their minds, so he just told them the first words that he could think of.

“ _Te…te quiero, Mami_ ,” he wheezed.

Boog sobbed when he heard the flames whooshing as Maximus dropped the match.

“ _Te quiero, Papi_.”

Boog quickly hung up the phone as the flames reached the bathroom. He knew they wouldn’t want to hear what was about to happen next.


	12. Let’s Kill Maximus Slade

Dylan grunted when Rachel slapped him across the face. He blinked a few times and slowly sat up, moments before he groaned and held his throbbing head.

“Ow…the fuck happened?” Dylan asked.

“We’re locked in! Help me break the door down!”

Dylan’s memories gradually came back, and his eyes shot open. Rachel kicked at the door several times before she stepped back and let Dylan try to open it. Still wounded, Dylan threw his entire body into the steel door, and immediately groaned and held his left shoulder. As they tried to escape, they heard muted screaming and crashing not far from the room; they assumed the screams were coming from Boog. Rachel continued to kick the door after she heard the preteen’s screams. After another thirty seconds, she and Dylan realized that Boog’s screams abruptly stopped, and Dylan shuddered as he feared the worst.

“No…Rachel—”

“He’s fine,” Rachel quickly said, unsure herself. “We gotta get out of here!”

Despite his injuries, Dylan attempted to break the metal obstruction down again. He was about to kick the door when he looked near the table at the backpack the group stole from Toby’s gang. Thinking quickly, he rushed to the pack and sifted through all the items. Then he exhaled with relief as he grabbed one of the miniature explosives and the slingshot.

“Good thing those cops didn’t check our bag. Get away from the door. I’m gonna blow it open!”

Rachel nodded and moved away, only to frown when she sniffed the air and detected a strange odor. “Hey, you smell that?”

Dylan ignored his sister and promptly set the explosive down beside the door. He pointed the detonator at it and was about to set it off until Rachel grabbed his wrist and pointed the detonator away from the bomb. She sniffed the air again as she pointed the flashlight at the door and frowned.

“Rach, now’s not the time—”

Rachel raised her hand and shushed him. Then she shined the flashlight down at the bottom of the door and saw a small gray cloud slowly coming into the room through the crevice between the door and the floor. Rachel coughed a few times and hurriedly grabbed the bomb, tossing it back over to Dylan. Then she panted and pressed her hands against the door, eyes dilating when she felt how warm the barrier was.

“Shit! Here, back away from the door and shine the flashlight at the window,” she told Dylan.

Dylan stammered as he slid the small bomb, detonator, and slingshot into his pockets and grabbed the flashlight. He raised an eyebrow before looking at the smoke coming into the interrogation room.

“Oh shit. Is that what I think it is?”

Rachel panted frantically as she grabbed a metal chair and lifted it. “We’re not staying to find out! We’re gonna grab Boog and we’re getting the fuck outta here!”

Dylan gasped when he heard something whooshing from the other side of the door. Two glass panes shattered, and Dylan had to cover his nose when more smoke seeped into the room. Rachel shouted as she swung the chair against the glass, listening to the metallic furniture bang against the glass. Nothing happened. She quickly moved her arms backwards before shouting as she swung it against the window again. It cracked. Dylan huffed and set the flashlight down on the table before he grabbed the other chair and helped his sister out. Together, the two of them grunted and shouted as they took turns swinging their chairs against the window. But the more time they took, the more smoke entered the room, making it harder for the siblings to breathe and see. Rachel was already coughing violently, and Dylan’s eyes were watering so much that he had to pause just so he could he could rub off all the tears that had stained his face. Once the preteen finished, he exhaled and shook his head. 

“C’mon, you fuckin’ thing! ARGH!” Rachel shouted in frustration.

She swung the chair against the window three more times, cracking it so badly that the entire pane had shattered and looked like it was about to break apart entirely. Rachel lifted the chair one last time, ready to break the obstacle down. And then the window abruptly shattered on its own, sending hundreds of tiny shards all over the floor. Rachel screamed as she was knocked over, while Dylan was deafened by the sudden explosion of glass and backed away as he covered his ears. When he opened his eyes and picked up the flashlight, he screamed. Maximus was right there, his body beaten and bloody, and now covered in dozens of glass shards. The werewolf weakly growled as he tried to stand up, while Rachel moaned as she scooted backwards, her face and arms covered in broken glass. Her shirt and pants were torn by all the glass, and she was bleeding from multiple areas.

“OH, FUCK!” Dylan shouted.

Only armed with a silver fork, Dylan screamed as he charged for Maximus, ready to stab him in the skull. Maximus, fed up with the preteens’ resistance, snarled as he used a burst of energy to lash out at Dylan, slicing right through his shirt and overalls. Dylan shouted as Maximus tore all the way through his skin, albeit he didn’t cut through the flesh or bone. The preteen whimpered as he staggered and tripped over his sister, dropping the fork and falling on his back. All three of them were heavily wounded and desperately trying to stand. Rachel gasped and whimpered as she got on all fours, gritting her teeth as she pressed her hands against the floor, the glass shards crunching beneath her palms.

“Dylan…up…” she moaned weakly.

Dylan groaned as he sat up, his outfit now torn as he felt a few glass shards sticking into his overalls and shirt. Maximus drooled and growled as he looked at the two humans with his functioning left eye. He grinned at them, still desperate to devour their bodies. Rachel panted and shouted when she heard something explode outside the door. When she finally got to her feet, she peeked into the observation room on the other side of the broken window and noticed the door had been busted down. More importantly, she could see an orange light coming from outside the door, and more acrid smoke was pouring into the room. Coughing and covering her mouth with her arm, Rachel limped over to Dylan and grabbed his gloved right hand.

“C’mon…c’mon, we gotta go!”

But Dylan didn’t feel like leaving. He scowled as he looked at the subdued werewolf bleeding profusely. “No…we-we finish this. We can end this—”

“Look at him! He’s fucked, Dylan! If he doesn’t bleed to death, the fire will kill him! Now let’s go…” Rachel stopped so she could gag and cough from the smoke. “We gotta-we gotta find Boog!”

Maximus growled tenderly as he turned his head and looked at the glass-laden duo. “Oh…the Discount Freddy Fazbear? Hehe…he ain’t coming…I like my prey extra-crispy, y’see…”

Dylan whimpered while Rachel stared at the werewolf with disgust. Maximus just lied on the floor and chuckled in a hoarse voice, spitting up blood and coughing between his laughs.

“You…you’re lying,” Dylan whimpered. “YOU’RE LYING!”

Dylan let go of Rachel and reached over the window frame. He shouted as the bits of glass still clinging to the window frame cut right through his gloves and hands. But Dylan ignored the pain and threw himself into the observation room, grunting as he fell on his back. He groaned and stood up while Rachel took the flashlight and glared at Maximus. She scowled as the beast glared at her, and then spat in his good eye, causing the beast to flinch. Panting and coughing, Rachel climbed over the window frame and regrouped with Dylan as he got back to his feet. Together, the two of them walked outside and ventured out into the corridor. Both of them turned to their left and shouted as they saw the flames quickly spreading around the building. The fire was so huge that neither of them could see the front entrance, let alone the door leading to the bathroom. Dylan sobbed as he walked forward and panted.

“Boog?!”

No one answered. All he could hear was the fire raging and crackling as more of the station began to burn. A huge wooden structure fell over, shortly before the roof creaked and a loud bang was heard. Dylan shouted as he backed away from the flames and shielded his eyes. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted again.

“BOOG!”

Dylan didn’t feel like leaving, even as the flames crept closer to his shoes. Rachel grabbed Dylan’s hand and started to pull him away, all while Dylan sobbed and felt tears running down his face.

“We have to go,” Rachel pleaded. “Dylan—”

“No! We have to find him! He-he was in the bathroom…”

Dylan looked at the partially burnt sign in front of the bathrooms. He wailed when he discovered that the flames inside the lavatory were so high that the interior of the room was barely recognizable. All he could see were the flames; he couldn’t even see a fraction of Boog’s body or his bear costume. Dylan whimpered as he backed away and gasped.

“May-maybe he got out,” he whined. “He could still be in here. He might still be alive!”

Dylan grunted as he wrenched himself free from his sister’s grasp. He turned and went down a second corridor that hadn’t been destroyed by most of the flames. Panting, the preteen opened up a storage closet, hoping he’d find Boog hiding until someone came to find him. He approached the break room as well, but by the time he started walking towards the door, the flames quickly spread and reached it before he could. Dylan coughed and backed away, struggling to breathe as all the smoke blinded him and filled his nostrils. All the glass and the bullet wound in his leg made it hard for him to keep his balance. Something else exploded inside of the building, causing Dylan to fall to the floor. He grunted as he landed face down, the sound of the foundation crackling and burning as the fire destroyed everything within the station. When Dylan got back to his knees, he grunted when he felt someone grabbing his shoulders.

“Dylan—” Rachel stopped talking and coughed so violently that she struggled to breathe. The teenager tried not to inhale so much as she hoisted Dylan onto his feet again. “We have to go.”

“Boog…Rachel, he’s still in here,” Dylan sobbed, feeling tears running down his face again.

“He’s dead, Dylan…I’m sorry.”

“N-no,” he said, still in denial. “He’s just hiding—”

“He’s dead! Now let’s get outta here before we die too!”

Dylan didn’t have the strength left in him to fight his sister anymore. He also didn’t have the strength to keep going, so he just let Rachel drag him around in the station. As they walked, Rachel nearly stumbled over a metal instrument and swore as Dylan had to steady himself against the wall. She turned around and looked at the instrument, shocked to see that someone had left a massive machete just lying around on the floor. Once she picked it up, Rachel huffed as she dragged Dylan to the side of the building, where the two of them came upon one of the windows that hadn’t shattered from the fire. Rachel stepped back before shielding Dylan from the glass.

“Cover your eyes,” she warned him.

Dylan did as he was told, and Rachel gritted her teeth as she swung the machete against the glass four times. On the fourth strike, the glass shattered, and more oxygen rushed into the building. Rachel whimpered as she lifted Dylan off the floor and shoved him against the broken window’s frame. He winced again as he felt the glass cutting through his clothing, but climbed outside nonetheless. Dylan grunted as he landed on the gravel and dirt, moments before another explosion sounded. Rachel used all the strength in her body to climb outside as well, and she fell down beside her younger brother. She quickly stood up and grabbed Dylan again, forcing him back to his feet.

“Go, go, go!”

The siblings got a few yards away from the building before a huge whoosh sounded behind them. A giant ball of smoke and fire shot out of the broken window, followed by a tremendous explosion. The explosion was so violent that Rachel and Dylan were knocked flat on their stomachs. Rachel dropped the machete as she and Dylan lied face down in the dirt. They remained there for a few minutes, still exhausted from everything they went through and all the smoke they inhaled. As both of them listened to the fire burning down the building, Rachel reached over and grabbed Dylan’s right hand. The preteen moaned softly as he felt more tears mixing with all the dirt and grime on his face.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” Dylan said softly.

Rachel didn’t know how to respond. She continued to hold Dylan’s hand and lied still as she listened to the wind blowing and the fire roaring behind them. Something thumped in the background, but neither sibling seemed to care about the noise at this point. Rachel exhaled as she felt the adrenaline leaving her body, and all the pain from her injuries began to sink in.

“I’m…I’m gonna try to find a car…we’ll drive—”

Someone growled. Dylan and Rachel’s eyes shot open as they went on alert. Rachel whimpered and slowly turned around whilst Dylan rolled over onto his back and sat up. Neither of them should’ve been surprised at that moment. And yet, they found it impossible. Even after all the beatings and stabbings he took, let alone all the blood he loss, Maximus Slade was still alive. They noticed that parts of his fur had burned off in the fire, and smoke was rising from the burn wounds. His right eye had been horribly mutilated and his body was laden with stab wounds. He was still struggling to stand up properly; even now the canine had to stop himself from falling to his knees. He grinned as he looked at the siblings and moaned softly as he bent down to pick up the machete. Then he took two steps forward, and the siblings held each other closely.

“You…you won’t even run?” Maximus whispered.

Rachel looked around. All the deputies were dead. Mark and Boog were dead. There wasn’t a single person around for over a mile. All they could see were a couple road signs, some telephone poles, street lights in front of the station, and a few vehicles that Rachel didn’t have the keys for. There was nowhere to run. So Rachel just looked at the werewolf and blinked.

“Does it matter at this point?”

Maximus chuckled. “Suppose not…now. Just…you two…you stay…stay still. I’ll make it quick.”

Dylan’s eye twitched as he looked at the salivating beast. He slowly moved his hand into his pocket, taking out his slingshot and a tiny device. Maximus opened his mouth wide, exposing his disgusting mouth. Before Maximus could react, Dylan set the object into the slingshot, pulled back on the rubber, and launched the object into the werewolf’s mouth. Maximus spluttered, dropped the machete, and backed away, grabbing his neck as the object was lodged in his esophagus. He was so surprised by what happened that the beast inadvertently swallowed the object and exhaled. Maximus took his paws from his neck and chuckled as he looked at Dylan.

“Are you…are you serious? Out of…out of all the things you could do now…your primary concern is making my breath fresh. That’s just…that is fucking amazing.”

Dylan exhaled as he dug into his pocket again. And then he grinned when he pulled out the detonator.

“That wasn’t a breath mint.”

Dylan pressed the button. Maximus’ eyes widened. Before he had time to react, there was a revolting, squelching explosion that tore Maximus’ midriff apart. Blood and fat erupted from Maximus’ torso and chest, leaving a giant puddle of vile fluids all over the ground. Bile, acid, and even fecal matter began to drip from the canine’s exposed body. The bomb had ruptured Maximus’ insides so badly that Rachel and Dylan could see his bones. Part of his spine was visible now, and his ribcage was now cracked and mutilated. They weren’t sure if they could see his heart, but his left lung was partially exposed, and now had bone fragments lodged into it. A glob of flesh plopped down onto the ground as fetid steam hissed from the werewolf’s bare body. He moaned gently, legs shaking, and took two steps forward. But even with his regenerating powers, it was too much for him. He fell on his back. Rachel and Dylan grunted as they stood up. They limped over to the wounded werewolf and looked down at his body.

“Fuck me…he’s _still_ alive,” Dylan said with disbelief.

The siblings stared at Maximus with shock as the werewolf coughed up blood and exhaled. Then Maximus grinned widely and emitted a choking, guttural laugh. Fed up with the beast, Rachel crouched down and picked up the machete, breathing heavily. Maximus turned and looked at the teenager, still grinning.

“Ya havin’…ya havin’ fun yet?” he asked weakly.

Rachel didn’t answer with words. She gritted her teeth, raised the machete, and swung it against Maximus’ neck. The canine gagged as the blade dug into his flesh. She lifted the machete and swung it again, cleaving the flesh. Maximus coughed up more blood as he felt his life slowly fading away. Then Rachel lifted the machete and swung it a third time, cleaving through the werewolf’s neck so much that his head was almost completely off. Maximus stopped grunting and emitting noises, and his eyes began to close. But Rachel wasn’t satisfied. She lifted the machete and grunted with her teeth grit, slicing through the last bit of flesh, skin, bone and fur that connected Maximus’ head with the rest of his body. His head finally came off, and blood started to spill out the beast’s severed head and the portion of his neck that was still intact. Even then, Rachel wasn’t satisfied over what she saw, and neither was Dylan. So she started to hack at Maximus’ head, grunting and snarling repeatedly as she swung the machete at his skull. All Dylan could do was watch with an emotionless face as the werewolf’s head was torn apart with the giant machete. Rachel tried to chop the head in half over and over again, but the skull was too hard, and she was too tired to deliver a clean blow. When she realized that she cracked the skull far enough to reach the brain, she screamed and impaled the head with the machete, driving it through the cracked skull and into the pale organ.

Seconds later, her weariness overcame her, and her hands started shaking. Rachel moaned as she fell to the ground, suddenly shaking uncontrollably as blood and glass covered her entire body. She let go of the machete and screamed as vociferously as she could. Dylan thought she’d be laughing or sighing with relief now that the terrible beast was finally dead. But all she could do was sob. Dylan looked over into the police station, remembering that Boog was still inside, along with the deputies who at least attempted to save them from Maximus. The preteen found himself shaking too, and he sniffled as he felt hot tears running down his face. Dylan walked over to Rachel and hugged her from behind, and the siblings cried together as they remembered all the friends they lost that night.

_______________________________

“You ready?”

“Just give me a minute,” Dylan said, his voice much deeper.

The teenager exhaled as he stood in the bathroom, looking at the outfit he was wearing. He had a red bandanna tied around his head and was wearing baggy black pantaloons and a dirty, oversized long-sleeved shirt that used to be white at one point. Dylan backed away from the mirror and straightened out his clothes again, grumbling as he tried tugging at his underwear. Then Dylan crouched down and tied his brown boots before standing up and sighing. Before he could walk out the bathroom, Rachel walked in, now dressed as a cowgirl with a large cowboy hat, dusty jeans and boots, and a loose-fitting vest.

“C’mon, sis, you couldn’t wait? What if I had been shittin’ in here?”

“Trust me, Dylan; I can hear you across the whole damn apartment when you’re shitting.”

The siblings chuckled for a moment, and then Dylan scratched his head, the bandanna irritating his shaved scalp. He coughed for a moment before setting his hands down on the counter. Dylan thought about saying something or teasing his sister on her outfit, but all he could do was stare at the sink. The teenager took a deep breath as he ran his fingers against the counter and blinked.

“You good, Dylan?”

Dylan swallowed. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay.”

Rachel walked over to Dylan and rested a hand on his right shoulder. “We don’t have to do this, y’know. I’m sure people would be saying we’re too old to trick-or-treat anyways.”

Dylan snorted. “Tch! Right, like you’re _ever_ too old to get free candy. ‘Sides, I missed out the last two years; think I should make up for it tonight. …I’m sure it’s what Mark and Boog would want.”

“No…Mark and Boog would want you to remember them by putting candy on their graves.”

Dylan chuckled as he took his hands off the counter. “Yeah, and Boog’s ghost would be all like, ‘What is this _mierda_?! Your bitch-ass knows I don’t like licorice!’”

Somehow, despite everything they went through, Rachel and Dylan ended up laughing together, still recounting some of the fun, playful banter they had amongst one another. Feeling better, Dylan exhaled as he stepped out of the bathroom and grabbed his fake sword and plastic bag that had a jack-o-lantern scribbled on the front of it.

“All right. Let’s do this!”

_______________________________

Rachel laughed as she walked down the street alongside her brother. She looked inside her bag and snickered when she realized that the last owner they visited gave her a giant Gummi bear that weighed over two pounds. 

“Are you serious?! Look at this! I don’t think I can even eat this whole thing! Heh, seems like I’m done for the night; this’ll keep me full for the next few days!”

Looking at Dylan, Rachel noticed that her brother was scowling as he looked inside his bag. “What’s up with you?”

“That bitch gave me an apple,” Dylan grumbled.

Dylan pulled out a giant green apple and held it in his hand. Anyone looking at his face would’ve thought he just tried to eat a lemon with salt sprinkled on it. Rachel laughed hysterically as she looked at the green apple, while Dylan blinked twice and grumbled.

“That is just…that’s just _perfect_ ,” Rachel said.

“She couldn’t even give me an ambrosia one? Fuckin’ shitty-ass green apple,” Dylan snarled.

As a car slowly moved down the street, Dylan grunted and tossed the apple against the road. He heard a muffled crunching noise, and grinned with delight after he realized that the car just ran over the green fruit. Feeling better, Dylan and Rachel resumed walking through the neighborhood.

“All right, my bag’s kinda full here too. We should head back to the apartment and get a second container—”

“BLAAAAAAARRRGH!”

Dylan and Rachel screamed as someone appeared from a massive hedge and scared them. Dylan stumbled backwards and dropped his bag while Rachel stared at the beast in front of them with dread. The being who scared them was a giant shirtless black werewolf wearing tattered blue shorts. Blinking, the black werewolf chuckled and grinned.

“Hahaha…scared ya!”

“ _Fuck no_ ,” Dylan snarled, reaching for his pepper spray.

As Dylan stood up and took out his pepper spray, Rachel took out the Taser that she took from Dawson’s house three years ago. The teenager and young adult scowled as they approached the werewolf.

“Oh shit. Whoawhoawhoa—hold up! Hold up! It’s just a costume—it’s fake!”

The werewolf reached up and grabbed his head. Then he grunted as he took it off, revealing a young adult with messy brown hair underneath it. The man looked at the siblings and chuckled.

“S-sorry…I didn’t realize my costume was _that_ realistic!”

Dylan and Rachel’s hearts stopped beating so fast. Dylan slipped his pepper spray back into his pocket while Rachel lowered her Taser.

“…Costume?” Rachel said.

“How’d you get the mouth to move?” Dylan asked.

“Oh, that. Same way they did it in all them movies from the nineties. The body’s a costume, and the head’s an animatronic. Y’know, like in _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_? S’a real bitch to make, but,” said the man, as he put the head back on, “I got it to work!”

The siblings took a huge breath and relaxed. Dylan covered his eyes and laughed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry man! Guess we’re just a bit jumpy tonight.”

“No shit. Still, what’d you guys think? That this was real? C’mon now; werewolves don’t exist!”

“Pfft!” said Rachel, waving a hand. “Course werewolves don’t exist! Everyone knows that.”

The man chuckled as he walked past the siblings and waved to them. “Well, see ya! I’m gonna see who else I can scare with this!”

As the man in the werewolf costume walked away, Dylan and Rachel flicked their eyes at each other.

“Is that Taser on its max setting?” Dylan asked

Rachel took the Taser back out and adjusted its setting with a soft click. “It is now.”

“Good.”

The two siblings resumed trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, albeit every now and then they would look over their shoulders, double-checking to make sure they weren’t being followed by giant canines again.


End file.
